Thoughts on Learning

Baguazhang

Michael Babin
Thoughts on Learning Baguazhang
A Dank & Dusty Basement Production
Copyright 2004 Michael Babin

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication:

Babin, Michael, 1952
Thoughts on Learning Baguazhang
ISBN 0-9735370-0-0

Feel free to download and photocopy this text for your personal use although I,
as the author, reserve all rights to this handbook. Please do not plagiarise or edit
the contents in any way and include this page for copyright purposes.

If you like the text and nd it useful and get the urge to send me $10 US,
in the tradition of shareware, I will be happy to accept it and your comments,
positive or otherwise.

Send cash or an international postal money order to:

Michael Babin
2207 Halifax Drive
Ottawa, Ontario K1G 2W4
Canada

You can also contact me at michael.babin@sympatico.ca

February 2004
Photography by Anjela Popova
Cover artwork by Kaia Knightingale
Graphic design and layout by Vassili Bykov
As an instructor and writer, I try to provide something for everyone.

For those who are only happy nding fault,

I have generously included a few errors to meet this need.

I also have a sense of humour and refuse to curb that tendency

just to appear more scholarly. Bagua is too serious a subject
to not take a light-hearted approach to the training.
If there were fewer humourless obsessives and fanatics
in the world todaythere would be no need to study
the martial side of Baguazhang or any of the combative arts!
Acknowledgements

A special thanks is due to Erle Montaigue. If in the last decade I have nally begun to understand
what internal can mean in the the context of bagua, it has been largely due to his instruction,
example, and encouragement.

Good bagua instructors are rare, but so are good students. I would like to thank all those that have
studied with me since 1994 but particularly Sean Kelly, Jeff Campbell, and Stephane Trepanier for
their patience and persistence in travelling along this difcult road with me.

Thanks to Ron Beier and John Kavanagh, my colleagues in the WTBA, for the pleasure I have had
from our correspondence in the last few years on bagua and a variety of internal arts subjects. Some
of those email discussions were reworked for this handbook.

I would also like to thank Kaia Knightingale (http://www.kaia.ca) for the original artwork for the
front cover.

A special note of thanks to Anjela Popova and Vassili Bykov for their work on the layout and design
of this book and to Anjela, in particular, for allowing me to use the photograph she took. She can be
reached at anjelapopova@hotmail.com.

Michael Babin
Ottawa, Canada
February 21, 2004
Contents

INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................1
Video/DVD Instruction 5; Learning from Books, Periodicals & the Internet 7;
A Final Caveat 9

LEARNING HOW TO LEARN BAGUAZHANG ..................................................................10

The Learning Process 11; Key attributes for a student 13; Conclusion 22

FUNDAMENTALS: STANDING AND MOVING QIGONG ...................................................23

An Introduction to General Qigong Theory 24; Regulating the Three Treasures 28;
Bagua Standing Qigong Methods 30; General Guidelines for Qigong Practice 38;
Common Symptoms Experienced During or After Training 41; Conclusion 43

FUNDAMENTALS: THE EMPTY-HAND SOLO FORMS ....................................................45

Details Of Posture 45; Xian Tian & Hou Tian Concepts 50; Pre-birth Training: the
Circular Form of Jiang Jung Chiao 51; Post-heaven Training: the Linear Form 51;
General Training Tips for Empty-Hand Forms 52; Conclusion 58

FUNDAMENTALS: BASIC MARTIAL TRAINING ..............................................................59

What Makes Bagua Different in Martial Terms 59; The Basic Martial Curriculum 61;
Hammer Hands Applications Set 68; Form Applications 69; Conclusion 72

BEYOND THE MARTIAL BASICS ..................................................................................74

Advanced Martial Training 75; Self-defence 85

CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES............................................................................................96
Thoughts on Lineage 96; Is Bagua a Healing Art or a Martial Art? 99;
What Leads: the Hands or the Waist? 100; What is the Role of Pushing? 101;
Empty Force 102; Light Body Skills 103; Sexuality 104; Cross-training 105

WEAPONS FORMS & FUNCTION ..............................................................................109

Traditional Weapons Training 110; The Broadsword 111; The Long Staff 113;
Double Sword Form 114; Deer Horn Knives 116; Conclusion 117

TEACHING AND ETHICS ..........................................................................................119

Should You Teach? 120; What and How You Teach 120; Where you Teach 123;
Whom You Teach 124; Observers 125; Frustrations & Rewards 126; Conclusion 131

FINAL WORDS .......................................................................................................132;

ABOUT THE AUTHOR .............................................................................................134

Introduction

I remember a conversation many years ago with one of my sons, then twelve, who asked
me in wide-eyed innocence if I had wanted to be a bagua teacher when I was his age. He
couldnt understand why I then laughed as hard as I did when he asked his question and
looked surprised when I explained that at his age, as a French Canadian in early 1960s
Canada, I hadnt even heard the word, much less known what it meant.
Although times have changed and more people than ever before know that such a discipline
exists, few have any understanding of how hard it can be to do any traditional version of
that art really well. So, what is Bagua about? Well, like any traditional internal art, it is
about whatever each individual instructor brings to it within the broad framework that runs
the gamut from being a harshly effective martial system that builds health through hard
work and efcient body mechanics to New Age nonsense in which walking in circles while
chanting neo-taoist prayers and wearing archaic costumes is the whole of the practice.
Good bagua, no matter what its styleand there are manyemphasises balance and re-
laxation (sung), the development of twisting strength and whole body power, as well as the
use of the mind to create intent, both for healing and martial purposes. The solo aspect of
its circular practice can be strangely beautiful, full of graceful twisting movement, sudden
stops and changes of pace and direction, swooping and lifting actions, as well as explosive
movements.
The solo aspect of walking the circle while holding various postures or shapes is designed to
train the body in different waysmore on that in later chaptersas well as to be medita-
tive, which can help to strengthen and heal the emotions and the spirit. Walking by your-
self or with partners can be a very beautiful experience and very demanding physically. In
addition, as the exercise physiologists are now telling us with new-found fervour, walking
at a moderate pace is one of the best exercises for the body in terms of strengthening the
cardiovascular system without straining the joints the way that running can.
The traditional combative aspect is without sporting elements. It was designed to incapaci-
tate or maim in an era in which rearms were still rare and ghts usually involved more
than one attacker. It is also important to remember that many of the early tactics were
2 THOUGHTS ON LEARNING BAGUAZHANG

designed to be used against opponents who might be wearing some form of body armour
and were heavily armed with staff, spear, sword, knife, and any of a host of traditional
weaponry. In fact, many of the tactics that come down to us in the forms are designed to
lock-up and throw the opponent rather than strike targets that might be protected from a
punch or palm strike by leather or metal armour.
Most defensive and offensive movements are done with the open hand. The energy gener-
ated by the twisting of the torso combined with literally throwing your weight around in a
controlled manner is expressed through the open hands to strike, control and/or throw the
opponent; the weight of the body stays on the back foot when walking in a circle, though
not necessarily when doing postures within each change. The steps are rather tight, the
knees staying in close proximity one to the other. Kicks are normally aimed low, at the shins
and knees, to distract the opponent and leave his torso more vulnerable or to trap the lower
body to make it more difcult for the opponent to evade.
This martial effectiveness was rened by the many early practitioners who earned their liv-
ing as bodyguards and merchant convoy escorts. Those with no skill literally didnt survive
to pass on what they had practised, which was good for the art, if not for the unfortunates
whose martial skills didnt live up to their hopes and expectations.
In the end, the combative essence of bagua is learning to change spontaneously to deal ef-
fectively with the tactics of an opponent. The smaller student learns to evade attacks and
counter-attacks almost simultaneously, while the larger person learns to immediately invade
the attackers space by battering his way through the attackers arms.

FINDING A TEACHER
Like many North Americans, I rst came to the martial arts as a young man because I
was not particularly athletic and wanted to learn how to defend myself (the latter seemed
important, as I combined the worst attributes for personal safetya big mouth and slow
feet!) Unfortunately for my dreams of being another Bruce Lee, I soon realised that arts like
karate and jujitsu involved a great deal of hard exercise and more than a few bruises.
I wanted mastery of something that was reputed to be effortless and more than a little
esoteric. Bagua seemed to t the bill but, when I couldnt nd a local teacher of that art in
the mid-1970s, I picked Taijiquan by default. It took me almost a decade to learn, the hard
way, that taiji, when done well, only looks effortless. When I nally started learning bagua
and hsing-i in the early 1990s, I quickly relearned the same lessonnothing is as easy as it
looks to an outsider if done properly.
Similarly, it should be obvious, from a common sense perspective, that the best way to
learn is to study with someone with the personal skill and the ability to transmit how he or
she achieved that understanding, and who is willing to do so with you. There is really no
substitute for this kind of apprenticeship, ideally on a one-to-one basis, but more often in
a group setting.
A teacher is not someone with a great uniform, or who can do a seemingly endless variety
of forms, or who can push you around by using tricks of leverage or through your own gull-
ibility. It is true that training safely can sometimes make it difcult to weed out the experts
INTRODUCTION 3

from the poseurs. However, even without worrying about the many frauds trying to get
your money or your loyalty, it is not easy to dene competence when you are a beginner, as
almost everyone is better than you in most ways. However, time and effort bring increased
competence, and with a few years of experience (assuming that you are studying something
valid to begin with) it should start to be easier to sort out the outright frauds from those who
have some level of competence.
How does one nd the real masters in the mob of wannabees and poseurs? It is sadly true
that quite often those with the most grandiose claims and visible proles are the ones with
the least depth of knowledge. I doubt that the famous P. T. Barnum was thinking of bagua
students when he wrote, There is a sucker born every minute!but he would have been
correct in many instances.
However, the longer and the harder you train at a competent style, the more difcult it can
be to nd better role models, much less exceptional ones. Not many students are willing to
travel to workshops given by other experts in other cities, or even just to buy their videos
for comparison purposes. This is sometimes due to lack of time and nancial resources and
sometimes to the kind of blind loyalty that drives students to think that it is disrespectful to
their teacher to look elsewhere for inspiration.
It bears repeating that it is essential for an intermediate level student to make the effort to
compare what his or her instructor is doing with the skills and styles of that persons peers
in the the internal arts world. It is easy to be happy as a big sh in a small pond, and you
have to make some effort to compare notes with your peers in the ocean if you are serious
about your interest in becoming really competent!
Let me offer some suggestions as to how to dene the elusive quality of mastery in your
chosen role model(s). These opinions certainly reect my experience with Erle Montaigue,
who has been my main bagua teacher, but are equally true of those few other gems that I
have experienced over the years. A master is content to offer his or her own thing without
being overly defensive about his or her interpretation of the art and without being too criti-
cal of those who do things differently. He or she can actually do what they say they can.
This may seem simplistic, but there are many supposed experts who can talk the talk, but
cannot do the walk unless they are demonstrating on their own students. A master has a
strong foundation in traditional internal arts and continues to develop in a way that is a
reection of his or her foundation. He or she is someone with a normal life and interests
(family, vocation, hobbies) whose bagua is an aspect of their lifenot their whole existence.
A master is someone whose forms and training methods can eventually teach you the same
skills. In other words, their understanding is replicable and not just a unique expression of
their skill, experience, and personal genius.
On the other hand, you often meet teachers hooked up to a respectable lineage who are
mediocre in their personal skills or their teaching abilities. Having had a famous master,
now long-dead, will not automatically make you anything special. The problem lies in nd-
ing a balance between learning material that has some resemblance in detail and agrees in
principle with what you see being demonstrated and taught by other good representatives
of that art. Of course, this means that the observer has to have enough experience and skill
4 THOUGHTS ON LEARNING BAGUAZHANG

to tell the difference between a fraud, a mediocrity, or a genius. So, being a beginner is not
easy in any sense of the word.
Oh, and the height of mastery is that you dont act like a master and expect others to treat
you like one. Many instructors are willing to be worshipped by their students; others are
slowly seduced into thinking of themselves as special because of the adulation they receive.
Some instructors tread the fringes of exploitation by misrepresenting just how advanced
their skills arewhen they are really skilled only in a hard style and teach one bagua form
as a sideline, or by forcing their senior students to teach beginner classes for free, or by hav-
ing grading systems that call for frequent and expensive tests.
Sadly, a few have no problem with ethics. They dispense with them altogether and take
advantage of their students in a number of reprehensible ways. Here are some examples.
A local instructor who taught womens taiji and self-defence classes to beginners told them
that they could learn to project Qi (internal energy) to disable a rapist from a distance. A lo-
cal self-proclaimed grand master used to tell his students that he could not train with them
because his Qi was so strong that he would rip out their muscles if he touched them.
It was a little easier in the good old days to know if an instructor had skill, at least on some
level. The other local martial arts instructors would visit and offer politely, or otherwise, to
beat the ,,,, out of him. It is difcult to fake competence at the martial aspect of bagua
when a stranger is doing his best to punch, humiliate, or throttle you.
It is also sadly true that the majority of instructors, whether here or in China, rise to a cer-
tain level of competence, or incompetence, and then never change, no matter how many
years they continue to practise and teach. It seems to be human nature to believe that you
know it all and changing your approach is not easy, especially if you do have some skill and
have had good instructors.
In general, the fewer people involved, the less chance there is of serious errors being intro-
duced. Think of it like thiswould you rather own the master recording of a symphony
done with professional equipment or the copy you made from the bootleg copy somebody
else made with amateur recording equipment? Even with the highest skill and best inten-
tions, some changes occur every time a form is learned by a teacher and subsequently
passed on to his or her disciples for further transmission.
To make it worse, modern bagua is burdened with endless bad copies of bad copies. A
student learns from a reputable instructor for a few months or years and then, without his
or her blessing, goes off to teach students who do the same after an equally inadequate ap-
prenticeship. The original form becomes riddled with errors, or changes are made for all
the wrong reasons. Similarly, many recent immigrants from the mainland are now teaching
the wu-shu versions of bagua that they learned as a requirement for being a martial arts
sports coach at one of the Chinese colleges. While such forms may be a decent introduction
to the art, learning and practising one form hardly makes you an expert in a system!
A good style should provide the material for a lifetime of research and practice. A mediocre
or beginners form should be discarded when the time is right to do so. It is in your best
interest to make a real effort to search for an original document that suits your physique
and temperament. Leave the mutilated texts where they belongon the shelf.
INTRODUCTION 5

My own main bagua instructor, Erle Montaigue is, in case you havent done much reading
or exploration on the net, a controversial gure. Many deride his abilities and internal arts
pedigree, although rarely to his face or if they have seen him perform in the esh. As far
as I am concerned, he is the real thing in internal martial termsa middle-aged expert
who seems to get better and healthier every time I see him, and whose ghting skills are
harshly effective compared to what passes as martial competence in many versions of the
modern internal arts.
Erle has personally instructed and corrected me in my performance of all of the basic
forms and methods of his bagua at annual workshops that I hosted for him in the early
1990s. He authorised me to teach those forms and methods in 1994, and I have been teach-
ing that art at my Studio ever since. I have also done workshops with several other experts in
this art and have studied a large variety of bagua instructional videos, books and magazine
articles in an effort to understand the art better.
As those of you who have been studying with me for some time will know, my understand-
ing of what I practise and teach is constantly changing and evolving. This can be confusing
and frustrating for everyone involved, but that is also an important aspect of the process of
growth. While I tried to follow the example and teaching of my various teachers, I would
be remiss if I didnt acknowledge thatfor good and badwhat I practise and teach has
the stamp of my own personality and experience.
However, I have done my best to stay true to the spirit and discipline of Baguazhang in
terms of my own practice and teaching. It is important to remember that this was an ac-
cepted tradition in Chinayou brought the valid parts of your previous training to your
bagua. For example, the Gao Style has been strongly affected by the competence of its early
exponents in hsing-i.
If you dont have a competent instructor in your area, then give one of the basic tapes avail-
able through Erle, or other teachers, a try. It is possible to learn something at a basic level
from a good tape, especially if you develop or have the motivation to eventually get some
corrections from him or from another competent bagua instructor.

VIDEO/DVD INSTRUCTION
The saying the self-taught individual has a fool for an instructor is often sadly true. How-
ever, it is equally true that a beginner without access to a competent teacher can learn
something from such instructional toolsif they are geared to beginners. Similarly, study-
ing any good instructors videos is a legitimate, if challenging, way to improve your under-
standing of what you learned from him or her while in class.
However, if you have experience in another martial art or modern taiji style, it can be easy
to convince yourself that you immediately understand most or all of the bagua basics be-
ing taught either in class or on a video. Such arrogance is usually self-defeating. Look at it
this wayeven though both activities involve knowing how to skate, is a hockey player also
automatically qualied to be a gure skater, and vice versa?
Proper study goes hand in hand with frequent review, especially of the material you think
you already know. I have found errors, small and large, in my efforts almost every time I
6 THOUGHTS ON LEARNING BAGUAZHANG

have reviewed material I thought I had understood. It is not making mistakes that is prob-
lematicwe all make errors with new materialthe real error lies in failing to correct the
mistakes you know about, from arrogance or plain laziness.
Once you have some real knowledge, it is very useful to watch and study as many videos by
as many different instructors as possible. This allows you to compare notes on the different
ways of interpreting what you are learning.
Unfortunately, many of the instructors making videos are doing so specically to augment
their incomes and are less concerned about an accurate transmission of what they teach
than they would be with their own students. However, it is equally true that the majority of
those buying videos or DVDs will watch them once or twice and then relegate them to a shelf
without ever trying to practise, much less master any of the forms and methods shown.
As in all things, not all tapes are created equal, and it is not always possible to identify a bad
video until you have wasted both your time and money. It is important to remember that
even a talented instructor can produce a video that is poorly lit, hard to follow, and need-
lessly repetitious. It is also sadly true that some instructors will purposefully include errors
to the video instruction as a way of ensuring that those who study only the videos will be
identiable to those in the know if they ever meet them.
We tend to judge a product by its cost, and this is not always appropriate. A lengthy, high-
priced tape may give you little of value while a more modestly priced, hour-long product
delivers insights and tactics worthy of a lifetime of study. Similarly, dont automatically re-
ject the tape produced by an unknown martial artist and assume that the one by the famous
expert will be necessarily betterthis is not always true.
When considering the purchase of a particular video, pay attention to whether it is a dem-
onstration or instructional tape. A reputable producer or distributor will indicate which it is
in the advertisement. The former are really only of use for comparison purposes, or if you
have learned the material in person and need a record for home study.
You should also realise that a tape/DVD produced in China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan may
be labelled as instructional when it, by Western standards, is hardly more detailed than a
demonstration tape. It is important to remember that traditional teaching was often done
largely in silence and by example. You copied the physical movements of the teacher to the
best of your ability, and that was that until you were accepted into the inner circle of senior
students.
If you are bewildered by the variety of videos available by mail, try to rent copies of the
ones that might interest you before buying. Martial arts supplies stores as well as some New
Age bookstores often rent instructional tapes. You can also read the reviews that sometimes
appear in the martial arts magazines. Such opinions are not always impartial, but they are
a starting point for comparison shopping.
You can learn a great deal if you study videos in a disciplined manner and then have the
opportunity to get corrections or advice from someone who actually can do the forms and
methods with some competence. It is much harder to fool yourself about your progress if,
for example, I tactfully remind you that your thumb doesnt go there when you are dem-
onstrating the Toad in the Hole Posture you just taught yourself from one of Erles videos.
INTRODUCTION 7

It becomes essential to review the tapes you have used at regular intervals even when you
have a working competence in the material covered. If you are a relative beginner, as you
learn to pay attention, you will nd that you suddenly see aspects of the material you had
never suspected existed when you rst started. Perceiving, as opposed to just seeing, what is
being demonstrated is even harder (for many years) than trying to copy it physically.
As you develop more skill and over time, you will probably go through a stage in which you
dont think you are learning as quickly as you are capable of doing. For example, as adults,
you are free to buy advanced videos and try to incorporate the physical differences between
what I teach you, and what Erle is doing on them. Just keep in mind that you are stuck
with my opinions and guidance, and I expect you to do as you are told when it comes to the
forms and methods that I teach.
I dont want to be too discouraging, though, as for the intermediate level studentbut not
beginnerstudying instructional videos can be an excellent learning experience. If you
have a lot of aptitude, you can actually shave some time from your learning curve. How-
ever, you can also go off the track so much that you will undo all the real progress you have
made since starting to learn from me. You will also nd that there are a few overt and many
subtle differences in the way I teach the forms and methods compared to what is on the
videos. This is for a variety of reasons, and I make no apologies.
One last thing, please, do not borrow one of Erles or another instructors videos and copy
them instead of buying a copy from the source. Infringing on copyright is illegal and cheap-
ens the value of your efforts to learn. I know that many people today dont think of dupli-
cating cassettes or burning CDs/DVDs as being theft, butrationalise it all you wantdoing
so remains theft of intellectual or artistic property.

LEARNING FROM BOOKS, PERIODICALS & THE INTERNET

To put it simply, even the most heavily illustrated book is relatively useless for learning the
basic forms and training methods. The essence of bagua resides in movement and not in
static postures. These subtleties are impossible to capture through still photography.
Having said this, it is also true that illustrated books and articles are useful if used as a
supplement to personal instruction. You cannot learn a set of movements from a book, but
you can refer to it much more easily than to a video if you forget something from a recent
lesson, or while you are in the middle of practising.
Similarly, the written word is indispensable for studying the philosophy, history, and theory
of the art. Of course, it should also go without saying that it is easier to understand the
principles of bagua in your head than in your body or spirit. It is not too much of a cynical
statement to say that there are more armchair experts in the internal arts than in any other
martial systems. Unfortunately, we have such a cerebral culture that many people confuse
understanding something intellectually with understanding it on a gut level as a result of
having lived through it.
Finally, I also continue to be amazed by the numbers of experienced students and instruc-
tors that I meet who have no real understanding of the history and theory of bagua and
8 THOUGHTS ON LEARNING BAGUAZHANG

know nothing about the state of the art or the current masters presently teaching in North
America or the Orient.
How can you claim to be a serious student or instructor in any discipline when you have no
interest in the background of what you teach? Would you buy a car from a salesman who
said, I dont know anything about this vehicle, but it sure looks nice, doesnt it?
I recommend the following books. The rst is available over the Internet through Paladin
Press, and the rest through www.amazon.com if your local bookstore doesnt carry them or
doesnt do special orders:
Baguazhang: Fighting Secrets of the Eight Trigram Palm
by Erle Montaigue, Paladin Press, 1999
Emei Baguazhang: Theory and Applications
by Liang Shou Yu, Yang Jwing Ming & Wu Wen Ching
Yangs Martial Arts Association, 1994
Ba Gua: Hidden Knowledge in the Taoist Internal Martial Art
by John Bracy & Liu Xing Han, North Atlantic books, 1999
Pa-kua: Chinese boxing for Fitness & Self-Defense
by Robert W. Smith, Kodansha International Ltd., 1967
I would add that there are good translations available in English of the original Chinese texts
on the Circular and the Linear Forms that Erle teaches, and one such translator and dis-
tributor is Andrea Falk in Canada, who can be reached at http://www.thewushucentre.com/.
These texts are useful for comparison purposes as they contain the line drawings that il-
lustrated the original Chinese texts.
I would also heartily recommend buying the CD compilation of the defunct publication
The Pa-Kua Journal. It is available at very reasonable cost and includes all issues published
in the seven years it existed in the 1990s. Edited by Dan Miller, this was an excellent source
for any bagua practitioner to research the historical and theoretical side of the art. It can be
ordered through Plum Flower Press http://www.plumower.com/ in the United States.
On the Internet, bagua sites are often self-serving means of advertising classes, workshops,
videos, or books. And they also come and go, so I wont recommend any except Erles
website http://www.taijiworld.co.uk/. However, all you have to do is type pa-kua chang
or baguazhang in any search engine to get more information than you can handle in an
afternoonor several!
It is also true that while there is a huge amount of interesting information on bagua and
the internal martial arts available on the Internet; visiting the related chatlines and bulletin
boards can be very depressing. Many of the conversations seem less like those between
informed adults and more like those you overhear between teenage boys whose hormones
are in overdrive; heated arguments about minor details of practice or who is legitimate and
who is not.
For example, in these electronic forums, Erle has had more than his fair share of abuse, but
then again, so have many other legitimate experts. He should take comfort in the knowl-
INTRODUCTION 9

edge that experts like Sam Masich, Liang Shou Yu, Park Bo Nam, as well as Yang Jwing
Ming and, I would assume, many others, well known and obscure alike, have been criticised
or insulted through the anonymous safety of the Internet.
I would suspect that these forums act like the village well did in the Middle Ages in that
the inrm, the idlers, and gossipers are attracted to gather around to trade stories and to
make fun of those who are actually out working to support the village or are away ghting
to defend it. After all, Internet forums are anonymous (if you choose to hide), and those
you argue with or deride are far enough away (or mature enough) so that you dont have to
worry about retributionthe intellectual equivalent of the schoolyard bully who threatens
you while surrounded by his buddies.
A certain amount of arguing or teasing is fun at times, but it is also easy to have a board
ruined for serious discussion or exchange because the more experienced practitioners stop
posting out of disgust. Having said all this, it is also not a reference resource that you can
easily ignore for researching the history and current affairs of the bagua and internal arts
world.

A FINAL CAVEAT
By the way, Erle has produced many articles and books on the subject of bagua, and I will
not try to repeat what he has written on the forms and methods he teaches. Much of what
follows in the various chapters will be discussions of subjects and training methods I teach
in my personal classes. Consequently, if you dont have experience in Erles or anyones
bagua, you may nd it somewhat frustrating and the descriptions vague or hard to under-
stand. I am afraid I cannot do much about that.
As I said earlier, this is not a how-to-manual. Any good text on bagua is designed to stimu-
late thought and provide historical and theoretical backgroundnot teach movement.
If you focus on bagua, practise regularly to the best of your abilities and invest a minimum
of ve years with me or another competent instructor; you should develop a real under-
standing of its principles and core methods as a self-healing and combative system. After
that, your progress is limited only by your diligence, dedication and your willingness to seek
out better instructors.
Finally, if one of my current or former bagua students is reading this, thanks for having
studied with mea good instructor needs good students to continue to develop as a practi-
tioner and teacher. It is also true that there are almost as few good students of any internal
discipline as there are good teachers.
Chapter One
Learning how to Learn Baguazhang

The name of this art (also spelled Pa-kua Chang in older English language books) translates
as Eight Trigrams Palm in reference to the famous eight patterns of broken and solid
lines used in the Chinese philosophical and divination text I-Ching. While the principles of
bagua, and even its martial tactics, are often related directly to the text and various com-
mentaries on this ancient book, I prefer to focus on the more mundane aspects of training
in my classes, and this will be reected in the pages of this little manual.
As with the other internal martial arts, there are an often contradictory variety of stories
about its history. Although methods of walking meditation in circular patterns have been
used for religious and meditative practice by various Taoist sects for centuries, notably
in the monasteries of the Er-mei and Wu-tang mountains, historical bagua begins in the
mid-1800s with a man named Tung Hai Chuan.
Born an impoverished and illiterate farmer, he went on to learn a variety of traditional
ghting systems and eventually began teaching his distinctive approach while crediting
others with its creation, in the grand tradition of the Chinese martial arts. What a modern
person would call falsifying lineage was a common and accepted practice in China in the
old daysas venerable was always better, and innovative martial approaches were always
suspect. Particularly, but not exclusively in the Chinese internal arts, there is a long list of
anonymous Taoist monks or mythical gures who are supposed to have transmitted the
secrets of the various arts in dreams or through texts which mysteriously appeared on cave
oors or in other unlikely places.
In any case, Tung likely synthesised his art from a variety of ghting and meditation meth-
ods that he had learned over the years. Indeed, Tungs greatness as a founder and instructor
lies partly in his ability to adapt the principles and methods of his art to suit the tempera-
ment, physiques, and existing skills of his various students who were all experienced martial
artists when they came to him for instruction. Although he taught relatively few, many of
those went on to teach and modify, in their turn, what they had learned from Tung.
Today there are many different styles of baguazhang, and almost all of those available in
North America trace their lineage back to him. The style I practise and teach came from
LEARNING HOW TO LEARN BAGUAZHANG 11

Tung Hai Chuan to Chang Chao Tung to Chiang Jung Chiao to Ho Ho Choy to Chu
King Hung to Erle Montaigue and to me. It has been heavily inuenced by the hsing-i
training of Chang and Chiang and the varied expertise and experiences of those who have
followed. I am not sure that Tung would recognise the details of what we do if he were to
come back from the grave, but he would surely notice the spirit and the principles of what
he taught.
Done properly and moderately, over the long term, bagua solo training will transform you
and your health, often in ways that surprise you. However, I am not suggesting that you
need to become more Chinese than a native to be able to practise and benet from your
training. There is an unfortunate tendency in Western beginners to want or expect exotic
and mystical aspects to bagua training. I was discussing this with a colleague. His comment
was very apt: Too many of us spent too much time watching the kung-fu television series
when growing up. This tendency among those looking for lifes answers in cultures other
than their own is often exploited by instructors who have confused wearing Chinese cloth-
ing and spouting pseudo-nonsense in a learned manner with developing real internal style
skills.

THE LEARNING PROCESS

Learning any aspect of bagua is not simply a process of memorising physical moves and
remembering their sequence, or of doing a variety of martial training methods with a part-
ner or with your instructoralthough those are certainly essential aspects of the training
at any level of competence.
Learning this art is also, in part, a process of relearning the learning process itself. This is
especially true for those adults who have settled into a comfortable lifestyle and lost interest
in acquiring new habits. There is a saying that education is wasted on the young, but it
is also very true that the older student is already at a disadvantage compared to a younger
beginner in bagua if he or she is grossly out of physical condition or very set in his or her
ways.
For a beginner it is always preferable to have the best possible instruction, as it is easier to
create good habits than to correct bad ones once they become ingrained. Unfortunately,
good instructors, whether in China or North America, are almost as rare as good students,
and everyone has to start somewhere. However, it is equally true that the average beginner
will probably not be able to do more than crudely copy an instructors movements whether
those are of high or no quality.
Before you can copy your instructor, which is in itself the rst step towards developing any
real skill, you have to really see what he or she is doing. Until you can observe the subtle
movements and the ne details of your role models posture and body mechanics, you wont
know it is possible to move in such a manner. The majority of beginners may look but can-
not see what is being transmitted in any detail, subtle or otherwise.
At an intermediate level the student learns to rene his or her interpretation of the copied
movements until they are automatic enough so that there is some mental energy available
to work on the more subtle aspects (i.e., keeping the mind on the lower tan-tien; when to in-
12 CHAPTER ONE

hale and exhale, etc.). Once you meet a qualied and compatible instructor, stick with him
or her until you have decided that bagua is not for you, a process which needs a few months
of class time at the very least. Assuming that you stay for several years, learn everything you
can from that individual before trying to nd the next teacher. In fact, you should always
wait a little longeryou may discover that your own arrogance had made the forms and
methods seem easier than they really were.
However, it is also important to remember there are different ways to write a sentence that
still provide the same information. I have seen and experienced many different ways to
interpret baguazhang. Some are awed. Few are completely without value, particularly for
beginners.
I must add, though, that this is not true for those who wish to learn the self-defence aspects
of this discipline. When you are learning skills you might have to use to defend yourself or
your loved ones from real aggression, it is essential to have competent instruction from the
start, particularly if you have never had any decent martial training in the past. It is easy for
the many bogus instructors to fool their students if the latter have never been hit, in a ght,
and have no experience at rough and tumble.
Whether for martial or health purposes, you must learn to be patient with your own prog-
ress without becoming too complacent about it. It is easy to give up if you feel that you
have no aptitude for what you are studying, especially if you nd it more difcult than you
had imagined. In this regard, I have always valued advice I overheard Sam Masich, one
of Canadas nest modern internal arts instructors, give someone at a week-long training
camp of his that I attended in 1990. Sams comment was, You can correct almost any-
thing, except lack of practice!
For those who go the distance, you owe your instructor loyalty. This, however, should not be
a feudal willingness to suspend your ethics or misbeliefs and do what you are told, no matter
what. Rather, martial loyalty should imply an honest and mutual exchange and the willing-
ness on your part to trust the instructors motives and skills without losing sight of the fact
that he or she is human. Good students are essential to an instructor. They challenge him
or her constructively, ensuring that he or she continues to evolve as a teacher, as a martial
artist, and as a person.
Sadly, some teachers become egoists, content to surround themselves with students whose
only talents lie in attery or hero worship. Perhaps, the Chinese were on the right track with
the Confucian concept of loyalty which, though extremely strict and hierarchical, had a
safety valveif you successfully revolted against the Emperor, it was obvious that Heaven
was on your side, and you deserved to displace the old dynasty. You can rationalise betrayal
as with any form of human behaviour; but, in the end, loyalty is a two-way street. Both the
instructor and the student must contribute to the relationship if it is to survive and help
both to evolve as people and martial artists. By the way, I am not saying that the average
student of today should grovel before a prospective instructor, shower him or her with pres-
ents, and hang around their front door day and night until accepted as a student. Such may
have been appropriate in another time, another culture. It is not so appropriate today. It is
very true that, at least for the rst few years, the student who wishes to learn deeply needs
the instructor more than the latter needs students.
LEARNING HOW TO LEARN BAGUAZHANG 13

KEY ATTRIBUTES FOR A STUDENT

Wanting to learn any or all aspects of bagua requires hard work and particular physical,
mental and emotional attributes. It is difcult to reduce any aspect of this discipline to a
few crucial items, but the following three are certainly right up there in their relevance to
your training.

Learning to be Balanced
Balance has many interpretations. It is being able to stand as still as a post for several min-
utes even when supporting yourself on one leg; it is the ability to move slowly and smoothly
or quickly with a broken rhythm without being double-weighted; as well as willingness to
work at both aspects of baguaself-healing and self-defenceso that neither predomi-
nates in your training and daily life. Unfortunately, for the state of the art, balance is most
often interpreted as being purely physical and technical.
However, being balanced is not simply a question of how well you can move through
a variety of complicated physical manoeuvres. Balance is also about redening how you
interpret relaxation. New Age versions of bagua to the contrary, your objective is not to
eliminate muscle usage, but to loosen, align, and connect it into a whole body usage. For
example, the spine and hips become as important in striking as the shoulder, elbow, and
st. The mental visualisation of using the palm is as important as the physical movements
that accompany it.
For the beginner, always having your body weight supported by one, rather than both legs is
the beginning of balance in physical terms. At rst, it seems relatively simple to avoid hav-
ing an equal distribution of weight on both legs. However, always having more weight on
one leg than the other is hard work for the muscles and ligaments of the legs and hips.
Similarly, the frequent toe-in and toe-out movements that are characteristic of bagua are
also difcult to adjust to, as our hips tend to lose some of their natural range of motion
even when we are relatively t. It is not easy to learn to safely use the Triangle Stance that
is so common in our discipline. In the long run, strength and mobility and, consequently,
balance improves, but for the rst months?
As well as understanding how important it is to avoid being double-weighted, the interme-
diate level practitioner must also usually relearn how to stand and move. The spine must
learn to lengthen and compress subtly to aid in powering the movements. This allows for
a greater ease of Qi movement along the Governing Vessel that goes up the spine in the
back, as well as the Conceptor Vessel that goes down the centreline of the front of the torso
to the lower tan-tien.
To put it simply, balance is eventually achieved by relearning how to be upright and con-
nected, not straight and stiff. Eventually, the practitioner seems to move effortlessly through
each posture, each form, and pays less and less conscious attention to its specific details.
Progress in the technical performance of form is still important, but has become much less
so than in the beginning.
14 CHAPTER ONE

Few become master practitioners, and move with the ease of an animal. Their movements
seem as natural as taking a walk or going up a ight of stairs are for most of us. Some-
times they make mistakes or stumble, but such minor losses of balance are smoothed over
and have no bearing on their innate ability. In general, such practitioners usually are not
particularly concerned over how they look to observers. This is partly due to emotional
maturity and also because they are able to recover so smoothly from a loss of balance that
the mistake is difcult for the average observer to see.
By contrast, the beginner or pseudo-master is so concerned with his or her technical prow-
ess that this preoccupation becomes a source of imbalance and tension that can diminish
the quality of his or her practice. This is not to say that the ability to balance yourself on
one leg or the technical beauty of your movements are unimportant. If you go too far in
the other direction, you may develop an obsession with internal development that leads to
other problems.
In contrast to the technical perfectionists are the New Age bagua players who are content
to go through the motions, as if in a trance, while doing their forms with no technical preci-
sion or ability. The essence of the art is to unify and co-ordinate the spirit, mind, and body,
and not let one predominate. It is not enough to imagine that you can stand effortlessly
on one leg. Your body has to have acquired the strength, looseness, and body mechanics
necessary to do so.
Balance requires that you persevere, as much because you enjoy the classes and solo prac-
tice, as because you are determined to improve yourself. With the right attitude, your bagua
training becomes play of the highest order. It is a sad reection of human nature that most
students seem to nd a grimly obsessive attitude and facial expression necessary to feel as
if they are learning something of value. However, the best instructors I have had all shared
one trait, and that is a rich, if often eccentric, sense of humour.
Being balanced also implies that you will shufe your educational, work, family respon-
sibilities to accommodate your training needs. Few adults can train with the energy of
adolescence. Nor is it always possible to devote as much time as you would wish to your
trainingwhether it is in class or on your own. Are you balanced in how seriously you take
your trainingneither training obsessively day and night, sacricing family and friends,
education or career nor being lackadaisical, training sporadically as the mood strikes you.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. You may plan to go to the evening class
after supper on a regular basis, but nd, after the novelty wears off, that the location of
the classes is so far from home or work that commuting is exhausting. In addition, there is
always a price to pay for everything in life, and your leisure time is usually curtailed to some
degree when you are serious about your training.
This may be ne if you are single, but it will cause problems if you are not. For example,
your girlfriend may not understand why her dinner party seems less important than your
scheduled workshop, or your husband may not understand your sudden desire to attend
classes three times a week and worry that it will interfere with his routine.
Studying bagua can mean doing what you think is right for you even if others dont im-
mediately understand or support you. However, as few of us are reclusive monks living in
LEARNING HOW TO LEARN BAGUAZHANG 15

a mountain cave, we also have to remember the need for compromise. Erle Montaigue has
often said that you should train to live, not live to train. This is true, no matter what your
age, especially for maintaining healthy relationships.
Being balanced also implies that you will practise both solo and two-person exercises. It is
easy to convince yourself that walking the circle while holding the Eight Mother Palms or
doing the circular form everyday will somehow bring effortless power and great self-healing
benets. It doesnt if that is all you have ever practised! To reap the maximum benet from
your daily practice it is essential to traine in all aspects of the artnot just the ones you nd
easy or enjoy the most.

Learning to Relax
Some of the people who enquire about classes at my Studio want to know if bagua is as
relaxing as taijiquan is, incorrectly, reputed to be. They seem to nd it problematic when
I tell them that bagua is about stretching and lengthening, that this can eventually undo
chronic tension, but that the practice is initially anything but relaxing!
The muscle tone and efcient body mechanics required in bagua are relaxing in the sense
that real relaxation is related to creating postural integrity which encourages deep abdomi-
nal breathing, and loosens and stretches the bodys connective and muscular tissue. In tra-
ditional terms, this encourages the Qi to ow in an unimpeded manner throughout the
body.
In Western medical terms, rhythmic exercise, by the alternate contraction and relaxation
of muscles, improves circulation and avoids or minimises the pain and fatigue caused by
muscle tension. It accomplishes this primarily by dispersing accumulations of lactic acid,
a by-product of chemical energy production in the muscles. It is also true, particularly for
older students, that doing the form provides a weight-bearing exercise that can slow or
prevent osteoporosis.
However, it is more likely that the rst few months of classes will serve only to elevate the
stress levels of the average beginner as he or she discovers that learning qigong or the fun-
damentals of form is not as effortless as it looks. Even with adequate and sincere instruction
a novice is more likely to leave class tense and frustrated if he or she is unhealthy or unused
to regular physical activity.
Patience, perseverance, good instruction, regularity and moderation in your personal prac-
tice outside of class time are particularly essential in the rst few years.

Learning to be Adaptable
The more things change, the more they remain the same, a trite, yet accurate saying that
certainly describes the human reluctance to change even when we know it is in our best
interest. And, with time, this can help us to understand that change is not necessarily our
enemyjust another aspect of both our bagua practice and daily life.
While it is all too easy to move mechanically through the movements of form when doing
solo practice, it is much harder to ignore the imperatives of changing your tactics when
working with a partner. For example, if you dont modify a tactic that normally works on
16 CHAPTER ONE

someone at your own level of competence when practising with the instructor or a senior
student, you quickly learn that the ability to adapt spontaneously to changing circumstanc-
es is as difcult as it is essential.
Similarly, on a personal level, to quote the late musician and cultural icon John Lennon:
Life is what happens while you are making plans. Trying to prepare for the future is, in
some ways, as futile as trying to master techniques that cover every possible martial situa-
tion. What seems benecial at rst can prove to have been a curse, and vice versa.
Consider the old Chinese parable of the peasant whose only son wanted a young spirited
horse to ride, not just the placid old mare that his family used to pull their plough. The
mare ran away one night, which seemed a disaster for the family until she came back with
a stallion that had followed it home. This seemed a blessing, until the spirited new animal
promptly threw its inexperienced young rider, who was left with a permanently lame leg.
This was seen as a curse until the government ofcials conscripted all the able-bodied
young men and sent them off to war. The son was the only one allowed to remain at home
while the other young men were marched away, most never to be seen again!
Learning to deal with change is a complex process, and even without trying to make it
happen, becoming relaxed, centred, and spontaneous on a physical level is bound to have
similar ramications for your emotional state, and vice versa.

Setting Realistic Goals

A minority of gifted students, no matter what their age, will have one intuitive breakthrough
after another in their training. However, most of us will only achieve a deeper understand-
ing of ourselves and bagua, one element at a time, over the years.
The following strategies may help you make the most of your training and avoid injury:
Decide what you want from your training, set progressive and realistic goals, and put
them in writing. Break these down into smaller ones and assign them deadlines.
Keep a daily training diary, even on those days that you dont train. (Studying the
reasons why you didnt practise on a given day may help you determine patterns and
counterproductive habits.)
Expect setbacks. There may be weeks that you cannot train because of professional or
work commitments. There may be minor or serious injuries that require a period of
rest and rehabilitation. Long-term moderate effort is the ultimate key to being able to
train for the rest of your life.
Dont be too humble. Mastering a difcult technique or having a sudden insight into
some aspect of your training should be acknowledged with pride.
Dont be too proud. Keep your skills and accomplishments in perspective and identify
those areas in your training which still need work and can be realistically improved.
LEARNING HOW TO LEARN BAGUAZHANG 17

Duration & Frequency of Training

The length of each of your training sessions and their frequency in your schedule are
dependent on a number of variables: your own level of interest, physical ability, time con-
straints, and so on. It is certainly true that few modern teachers, much less their students,
practise with the intensity that the old masters are reputed to have brought to their training.
When reading about the master who would routinely practise walking the circle and forms
under a large table so that he was forced to use and maintain very low stances, it is hard to
believe that anyone today is capable of such intensity.
Few adults with families or occupations can match such training regimes. But it remains
true that regular practice is essential to making progress, especially if your interest goes be-
yond doing this discipline as more than a set of physical movements. I nd it difcult to be
patient with the modern practitioners who obviously believe that doing a modern wu-shu
variation of the Circular Form once a day somehow makes them superior in every way to
someone who trains regularly and intensively in one of the external martial arts.
Modern research has shown that the traditionalists were on the right track about the morn-
ing and evening being the best times to practise. People are more inclined to skip sched-
uled exercise in the mid to late afternoon because of fatigue or busy schedules. However,
high-intensity activity, like fast or fast/slow forms that require short bursts of energy are
best done late in the day. You will feel stronger, perform more skilfully and get more out of
your workout. For slower or steadier exercise, you will reap the same benets whether you
practise early or late in the day.
The self-healing and defence skills of baguazhang are gained gradually through moderate
and balanced training. An internal martial art is difcult to cultivate through either obses-
sive or lackadaisical training.
In this way, the obsessive younger student may quickly develop martial skills but destroy his
emotional and spiritual sense of balance; the older obsessive student may train too hard
initially and burn himself out on a physical or emotional level. Conversely, the lackadaisical
student trains only when the mood takes him or her and then overinates the value of such
training. It is very difcult for average students to learn the interactive side unless they come
to a group or private class two to three times per week for several years.
The martial skills cannot be gained from training on an irregular basis unless you are
already a very experienced martial artist or have a great deal of aptitude. Few fall in this
happy category!

Age-Related Issues
I have not had any success teaching children, or teenagers for that matter. Even young
adults, especially those with hard style martial experience, may have to give up much of
what they have already learned to make real progress and are often reluctant to do so.
As to young and middle-aged adults, many come to bagua expecting that it is effortless
right from the start because you are just walking in a circle. Several times over the years of
teaching I have shocked would-be students who had done indifferent bagua elsewhere by
18 CHAPTER ONE

encouraging them to walk properly. The conclusion was usually: Thats a lot harder to do
than what Im used to, but it looks so easy!
Athletically, men tend to peak in their late teens and early twenties, and it can be a shock to
realise that you are not as young as you once were. The average older internal practitioner
may have to modify the intensity of each session, or substitute a slower pace for a fast, or
practise a different form as he or she gets older, but there is no legitimate age-related reason
to stop completely. Such continuity is, of course, only possible if you practise a style that
uses sound body mechanics. Allowing your knees to rotate out of alignment may go unno-
ticed when you are a t 25-year-old but, in the long run, cause those joints to self-destruct
when you hit 50.
Aside from using proper body mechanics in your training, it is also important to practise on
a continuous basis. Stop all activity and training for a few months when you are past 50, for
example, and it will be more difcult to safely resume your practice, especially if you are
practising vigorous forms. The older beginner must come to terms with his or her strengths
and limitations and consider what personal and lifestyle changes will be necessary to train
safely.
You should consult with a physician before beginning to train in the interactive aspects, es-
pecially if you are over 35 and unused to physical activity. Heart and circulatory conditions
are often without symptoms until the moment you have a heart attack or stroke during a
warm-up. Similarly, it is difcult to begin bagua if you have an acute or chronic medical
condition affecting your back or knees.
No matter what your relative age, you may have to go on a diet and improve your tness
levels before beginning the martial classes and pace yourself once you have begun to train.
Of course, with proper stretching and progressive training any ability can be gained to a
surprising extent even by the not-so-young beginner. However, he or she will have to be
prepared to train more carefully and moderately than the younger students in the class. Hu-
man nature being what it is, you may nd it very difcult to restrain yourself when everyone
else around you is moving at high speed.
If you are practising intensively, as well as engaging in other demanding physical activi-
ties, I recommend taking one day off every week from your training. Older martial artists
should not ignore the realities of an aging body and try to exceed their capabilities or rush
their progress. Maturity and experience are assets that cannot be replaced, and most of the
best instructors I have met in a variety of martial arts are middle-aged, not young adults.

Gender-Related Issues
In the good old days in China, there wasnt a problem caused by mixed gender classesas
there werent any. Women learned only from their fathers, brothers or husbands if they
were lucky enough to have one who was also an instructor. In more recent years, in govern-
ment-run martial arts colleges on the Mainland, women experts teach form and qigong to
women, but rarely the combative aspects of the art and rarely in a mixed class.
While gender restricted classes are sexist in modern Western terms, these circumstances
avoid issues that often come up in Western classes, e.g., those looking for new romantic or
LEARNING HOW TO LEARN BAGUAZHANG 19

sexual partners more than quality instruction, and those men who feel that they can fondle
female students under the pretence of having accidentally made contact during the various
two-person exercises.
In regards to the latter, both sexes must be prepared for the intimacy of many of the two-
person training methods and accidental contact with certain tender parts of each others
anatomy. To make this whole issue more complicated, arousal (as in the emotional and
physical intimacy that can develop when training with a partner of the opposite sex) does
increase the production of sexual hormones which can be rened through your training
into martial or self-healing Qi. It is also just as liable to lead to something a little more inti-
mately mundane.
However, I dont think that gender restricted classes are a valid solution, as this may elimi-
nate some problems but create new ones. For example, some people are not comfortable
with being touched by members of the same sex or, conversely, enjoy it very much indeed.
In addition, in terms of developing self-defence skills, women are usually going to be at risk
from a larger man as, sexual dominance issues aside, aggressors are often compensating for
cowardice by looking for smaller victims. At least for some class time, women should prac-
tise with men to develop skills that might work against men.
Practitioners must also be prepared to acknowledge that they may well enjoy the intimate
contact. Human beings are sensual and tactile by nature, and enjoying the feel of another
persons body as you practise is part of the pleasure of traininglike dancing with a good
partner. It doesnt mean that you are debauched to feel this way; however, you mustnt
carry it too far the other way either.
While it is not the only solution, it is an option for a female student to get into the habit
of wearing one of the sparring bras that have plastic cups. Although to be frank, I nd
that very few women want to wear them in the same way that most male students ignore
the common sense of wearing an athletic support and protective cup because they are not
comfortable to train in.
It is certainly in the best interests of each instructor, from both a liability and ethical point
of view, to outline to his or her students what is and is not appropriate when practising in a
mixed environment. However, it is difcult to supervise a large group class as to what is too
much or is a sexual contact. One person may be completely unaware of contact that might
make another extremely uncomfortable.
As in most aspects of trying to adapt traditional methods to modern needs, it is not easy
to avoid diluting the martial content of bagua as the easiest way of avoiding controversy.
Instructors must be willing to be exible. In the end, this may mean limiting the techniques
practised in a group setting where supervision is spotty due to numbers, or ensuring that
women work only with women and men only with men.

Investing In Loss
The famous taijiquan instructor, the late Cheng Man Ching is reported to have often
exhorted his students to make progress by investing in loss. This can be understood in a
variety of ways depending on your experience with the internal arts. Certainly, the easiest
20 CHAPTER ONE

way is to learn from your mistakes. For anyone who has tried to understand any aspect of
bagua this is, perhaps, the hardest lesson of all, particularly when it applies to the various
two-person drills where it is important to learn to evade as much as block your partners
attacks.
From a teachers perspective it can be amusing to watch two students practising together if
both of them tend to be defensive by nature. The temptation is rst to refuse to acknowl-
edge that you have made a mistake; then to look for someone else to blame; and, nally,
come up with an excuse for why you failed. For example, your partner knocks you off bal-
ance and your rst reply is No, I didnt move my feet! When you nally admit that you
did lose your balance, the next reaction is often My partner used too much force! and the
last bit of ego defense is likely to be Well, I wasnt ready!
To correct such tendencies, the rst step is to recognise that there are things you need to
work on in yourself that are hindering your progress. Seems like common sense, but it is
amazing how many students have trouble identifying their problem areas. Sometimes they
cannot see the problems; quite often they refuse to! Now, investing in loss is hard enough
in solo work, but it gets harder still when someone is repeatedly beating their way through
your defences, punching you, or pushing you vigorously into a wall.
In this case, it is almost impossible to rationalise your weaknessesyou either learn from
them, refuse to return to that kind of training environment, or lose your temper and esca-
late the training to the level of Oh, yeah! Take this! All are counterproductive.

Skipping Stages
How do you know if you are skipping stages that might later prove to have had essential
lessons to be digested? After all, it is easy (when you imagine that you have relevant experi-
ence) to think, Right, enough of this intermediate stuffas a genius I can leap from the
rst step to the highest. I know from bitter experience that every time I have convinced
myself that I was nally an expert, I have discovered the hard way that something was still
missing, and I could stand to get back to basics.
This is one of the few areas in which I would offer a gentle criticism of Erles approach to
making such a wide variety of video material available. Too much of it is aimed at the in-
termediate and advanced level practitioners, not enough at the beginner. In the beginning,
a new student (no matter how much unrelated martial arts experience he or she may have)
needs to focus on precision and the basics of bagua posture and body movement.
Instead, beginners tend to buy the advanced tapes and teach themselves the form shown at
that level. The result is normally counterproductive for those practitioners learningespe-
cially if they dont have the constructive criticism of a live instructor on a regular basis.
Let me put it simply: a baby learns to turn over on its own. Then it learns to prop itself up
on its forearms. Then it learns to sit up. Then it learns to crawl on all fours. Then it learns
to stand holding onto the parents hands. Then it learns to stand unaided. Then it learns to
walk. Then it learns to run. Then the parents learn to hide all the breakables and danger-
ous objects. A few genius babies can skip a few steps to physical independence, but the
majority progress by learning in stages.
LEARNING HOW TO LEARN BAGUAZHANG 21

Perhaps, there is great truth to that old Buddhist and martial arts adage that In the begin-
ning a mountain is just a mountain. With study you realise how complex that seemingly
inert structure is, and with even greater maturity comes the realisation that a mountain is
just a mountain.
I suppose the occasional genius, or idiot, can skip that middle stage. Most benet from ex-
periencing it although many of those who bother also get stuck at that level.

Cross-Training for the Relative Beginner

I have met several karate and shaolin instructors who practise and teach bagua as a prot-
able sideline. And, in the vast majority of cases, their internal arts are anything but! Simi-
larly, those students who have done yoga or meditation training of one kind or another or
any of the New Age body/mind disciplines may spend too much time trying to compare
what they are learning to what they already know (or think they know).
In many ways, it is more fruitful in the beginning to spend most of your time analysing how
bagua is different from what you already know, rather than making assumptions about the
similarities.
While I dont insist that you immediately stop training in any discipline or martial hard style
in order to learn bagua from me, you will eventually reach a point when you must choose
the path that best suits you. Human nature is such that the average student usually resists
and resents this need to start over. I have been faced with such a need several times, and it
is never an easy task on any level. There is a world of difference between baguazhang and
taijiquan, not to mention Goju Karate, Hung Gar, or Wing-Chun.
If you continue to enjoy and practise the other arts as you learned them, it is unlikely that
you will have the time or aptitude to do bagua the way it should be done as a martial art.
Having said that, the average hard stylist may derive considerable health benets from prac-
tising bagua qigong alone, even if they continue to practise their old martial disciplines.
It is equally true that you may have difculty relating to the differences between what I
teach and what you may have learned from other bagua instructors. Some of what you
will be exposed to are simply variations of other valid interpretations and can be ignored.
Sometimes, however, you will need to start from scratch, and this can be very hard on the
ego if you have gotten used to thinking of yourself as an experienced practitioner.
Sadly, workshops are largely a waste of time in terms of an individual being able to benet
much unless he or she already has considerable skill and experience and takes an equally
talented partner to train with during the workshop, to maximise that learning experience,
and has someone to continue training with back at home over the following months and
years. Too many martial artists are content to take endless workshops just to get a photo
with, or a few memories of, the guest instructornot to mention the certicates and t-shirts
that they hand out at North American workshops. It is difcult to say which is better (in
my experience, anyway)having a beginner who is experienced martially or has no such
experience. Those with hard style experience can be either the best or the worst of students,
and this is equally true of those who come to class with a clean slate.
22 CHAPTER ONE

CONCLUSION
While some teachers and styles are better than others, there are many different valid ap-
proaches to bagua: some emphasise the health aspect, some emphasise the self-defence stuff,
and some emphasise the competitive aspect of the art. As long as teachers have skill and
bring some of that skill to their teaching, you will benet, providing you practise enough to
make progress and enjoy the practice enough to continue to do so.
My one caveat is that the teacher should have what one of my instructors told me his
teacher had called (in broken English) a good heart for the people. In other words, the
teaching should benet the students on some level, each according to his or her capacity,
and not just stroke the ego of the teacher, or ll his pockets with money.
Speaking of money, there is an interesting Chinese expression which states that learning
bagua or any internal art is like putting money in the bankmake a small deposit every
day, dont make too many withdrawals, and you will reap the interest when you are old!
Chapter Two
Fundamentals:
Standing and Moving Qigong

Practising Qigong (literally translated as energy or work done with skill) is about loosen-
ing, relaxing and strengthening the body, restoring efcient body mechanics, and having a
balance of Yin and Yang energies throughout the the body, and its energy system. Accom-
plishing this will also calm, strengthen, and unify your mind and spirit, and maintain an
optimal amount of internal energy, as well as circulate it throughout the body for a variety
of purposes.
Any physical or emotional injuries, as well as muscular tension, can impede or block the
smooth and balanced ow of Qi within the body and affect the health in various ways. For-
tunately, imbalances will often clear up on their own. Qi, like water, always seeks to balance
itself. However, various methods can also be used to ensure the production of a normal
amount of Qi, rene its quality and balance its circulation.
Practised with competence and over the long-term, any valid system of qigong, whether
done as part of an internal martial system or solely as a health practice, is said to be good
for the Qi.
I once had an e-mail message from someone who wanted to know if it was Qi he was feeling
when he experienced a magnetic repulsion and attraction in his hands doing qigong.
I answered that this, along with trembling, feelings of warmth, tingling of the skin, and
other sensory phenomena was a common manifestation of such training, but it was impor-
tant not to confuse the symptoms of the ow of intrinsic energy with Qi itself. In the same
way, the heat in an electrical wire is a by-product of the ow of electricity through copper
or aluminium and is not the electricity itself.
Without doubt, long term qigong training can change the body, emotions, and spirit in a
way that can be likened to rening crude ore into iron ingots and eventually, with further
skill and effort, into high-grade steel. All three are manifestations of the same thing, lumps
dug from the earth, but the nal product shines beautifully and has much more use in daily
life.
24 CHAPTER TWO

The process of rening makes the substance stronger and more exible as a lump of iron
ore, relatively inert and useless, becomes a sharp and exible high-carbon stainless steel
kitchen knife. Both are the same substance in essence, but one is the product of time and
effort.
Qigong makes this renement happen in a number of ways. Some are impossible to anal-
yse empirically. Some make sense from a traditional Chinese perspective, and some make
sence from a Western logical perspective. My own gut feeling is that deep relaxation and
quiet attentiveness eventually encourages both hormonal and attitudinal shifts in the body.
For whatever reasons, taking chronic tension out of the spine, the muscles, the fascia, and
connective tissues, and learning to quiet the mind creates a powerful tool for change.
And now for the bad news. This process also fuels, and is fuelled, by a general overhaul
in your lifestyle. It is unrealistic to believe that you can continue to smoke; eat garbage,
abuse alcohol or drugs; get too little sleep; endure or provoke abusive relationships; work in
an environment that sties your body and spirit, yet counteract all this by doing the Circu-
lar Form or standing and moving qigong.
But through your training you may awaken to understanding that what you are doing is
harming you. Every way, no matter how seemingly small or insignicant, in which you
change your lifestyle and attitudes contributes to the process of maturing; a process that
seems to have stopped in many people.
Many of us think we want to get rid of our bad habits, but then discover that the process
of change is frightening and disorienting. Radical change can mean the loss of attitudes
or habits that dene us as we are. It can also mean the loss of relationships as people react
badly or uneasily to how we are changing.

AN INTRODUCTION TO GENERAL QIGONG THEORY

The following is a simplistic overview of a fascinating, complex and disputed subject. While
you dont have to be an expert in qigong or Chinese medical theory to benet from your
bagua training, it can certainly help if you understand some of the key concepts.
One key concept in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is your body, mind, and spirit are
all interdependent. They affect one another at all levels. An ailment of the mind will be re-
ected in the body. Similarly, any physical ailment must affect the emotions and spirit. This
attitude, called Holistic in the West, is also seen in the interpretation given to the functions
of the organs.
When you are in good health, your Qi is strong and abundant and ows smoothly to all
parts of the body, including skin surface. If your Qi is blocked, or decient in certain parts
of the body, disease can more easily occur. Our basic, Innate or Original, Qi is inherited
from our parents, and its quality is xed and dependent on their heredity, health, and age
at your conception.
It is impossible to change the quantity or quality of this Qi through qigong. However, you
can positively affect the quality of the Acquired Qi that you create within yourself to, at
STANDING AND MOVING QIGONG 25

least partially, compensate for weak Innate Qi, or for Qi prematurely wasted through poor
living habits.
Conversely, healthy living habits (clean environment; nourishing food and drink; good
thoughts; avoiding or minimising excessive behaviour; maintaining supportive relation-
ships) are essential for making real progress through your qigong training. Practising qigong
of any kind should be seen as one of the mechanisms of living a healthy lifestyle.
According to TCM, Qi circulates through twelve main (ching) and eight extra meridians (mei)
close to the surface of the skin. The former are each connected to major organs or regulate
organic processes. The latter are storage reservoirs and major conduits for internal energy.
Three of the extra meridians are particularly important:
The Governing Vessel (du mei) starts at the bottom of the torso, goes up the spine and
over the top of the head to the upper palate.
The Conceptor Vessel (ren mei) begins at the tip of the tongue and runs down the
centre of the front of the body to the bottom of the torso.
The Girdle Vessel (dai mei) runs around the waist from the area of the kidneys in the
back to the navel. This is the only horizontal power line in the body, like a rope
that ties together all the others that run vertically. This is why there are many qigong
exercises designed to twist the waist. This is said to massage, open, stimulate, and
strengthen this crucial vessel and all the organs in the middle of the torso.
In addition to the twelve meridians and the eight vessels, there are also numerous minor
channels (lou) which, like capillaries in the circulatory system, carry Qi to the skin surface
and to every cell of the body, especially to the bone marrowwhich, modern medicine tells
us, is a major player in the immune system. One of the main aspects of QiWeiqi/Protec-
tive Qiis to act like an invisible buffer against infection and bad Qi entering the body.
The twelve meridians are said to consist of six pairs, each component having a Yin and Yang
relationships. In the upper (or Yang) part of the body the three Yin meridians run from the
chest to the hand, and the three Yang meridians from the hand to the head. In the lower (or
Yin) part of the body the three Yang meridians extend from the head to the foot, and the
three Yin meridians from the foot to the abdomen and chest.
Internally, each is connected to and named after one of the main organs of the body. Ex-
ternally, each channel connects with the skin at specic hollows or the acupuncture points.
Imbalance in a channel can manifest itself in its related organ and vice versa. For example,
pain along the heart channel, one of the shortest, from the tip of the inside edge of the little
nger along the inside of the arm to the armpit, can indicate a heart problem.
Although new points are constantly being discovered, the main points on these power
lines have been charted for thousands of years. Good health depends largely on a smooth
ow of Qi along the channels. This, in turn, requires the body and mind to be in har-
mony.
Yin and Yang is a way of expressing this idea of balance and constantly changing state of
equilibrium.
26 CHAPTER TWO

The written character for Yin originally represented the shady side of a slope, and the term
is associated with such qualities as cold, quiet, responsiveness, passivity, darkness, down-
wardness, decrease, and femininity. Yang originated as the character for the sunny side of
the slope. It is associated with qualities such as heat, stimulation, movement, activity, excite-
ment, vigour, light, upwardness, increase, and masculinity.

Yin, Yang (Traditional Chinese)

Everything has both Yin and Yang qualities. It is the interaction between these two forces
that creates Qi. If your Qi is in harmony, both Yin and Yang are in balance. Like the blood
circulatory system, the Qi circulatory system supplies energy to every cell of the body. Any
physical or emotional injuries or muscular tension, can impede or block the smooth and
balanced ow of Qi within the body and affect the health in various ways.
The classical analogy compares Qi to water which always seeks to ow into and ll the low
from the high.
Fortunately, blockages and imbalances will often clear up on their own as Qi always seeks
to balance itself. When they dont, you go to a qigong doctor for advice or treatment. For
example, a Chinese doctor will try to discover whether or not your kidneys are processing
liquid wastes as they should, and if their vitality, or lack thereof, has caused the pain or
weakness you are experiencing in your legs. If the pain is accompanied by related symp-
toms such as a lack of willpower and mental acuity this points to an imbalance of energy
in the kidney and/or its meridian.
Modern experts tend to compare Qi to electricity in terms of its quality and function. This
is as good an analogy as any for modern students, but Qi is no more denable in objective
terms than any other subjective aspect of life.
Humans seem very fond of analysis and categorisation and, as a result, there are several
major categories of Traditional Chinese Qigong: self-healing, martial, medical and spiritu-
al. These broad categories can be approached from a Taoist or Buddhist, Tibetan, or even
Muslim perspective. There has been much blending over the centuries, and many methods
cannot be neatly pegged into only one category.
Any of these categories can be approached through passive or active methods. But, there
is some crossover. Some methods of passive qigong do involve slow movements of parts of
the body, and some forms of moving qigong involve moving the legs but limit movement
in the arms and torso.
In recent years in China there has been a tendency to make qigong medicine, theory, re-
search, and practice more scientic from a Western perspective and to divorce it completely
from any association with the religious roots of the art. There has also been a concurrent
boom in the amount of qigong practices available to the Chinese community and, through
STANDING AND MOVING QIGONG 27

the immigration of many qualied qigong teachers and video/DVD sales, to the Western
public.
In addition, a wealth of traditional and modern documentation has been translated and
released on this subject. Sorting through such a mass of information in English, let alone in
Chinese, is difcult enough. It is even harder to experience and absorb it. Qigong and the
internal martial arts seem to attract more than their fair share of students who would rather
discuss and theorise over a cup of tea than practise with any intensity.
Qigong is a complex subject. Unfortunately for those seeking enlightenment on what Qi is
and how to cultivate it, as one can see from the following comments of different experts,
they are hardly unanimous in their opinions: Do any method correctly and Qi will be
manifested without effort. You must follow the true path to develop Qi. Qi is not a
mysterious force, you can practise safely on your own. Qi must be cultivated with great
attention to detail and under constant supervision, or you will harm yourself.
Such statements often tend to obscure, rather than assist, the process of investigation. In
pragmatic terms, the therapeutic uses of acupuncture and acupressure on humans is well
established in the Orient. Its successful use on a variety of domestic animals also indicates
that Qi manipulation has a real effect.
However, scientic studies in the West and in China are inconclusive in regards to what is
really going on in terms of healing. I remember watching a television documentary a few
years ago in which two groups of volunteers were given acupuncture treatment, on the
back, for the same chronic medical conditions. One group was treated with needles inserted
into the requisite points according to the principles of TCM; the other group was told that
they were also being treated with the same appropriate points, but the needles were actu-
ally inserted randomly on their backs. Both groups reported roughly the same amount of
improvement in their respective conditions.
Despite studies of this nature, it is important to keep an open mind. It would seem to me
that analysing the form and function of Qi is of less value than knowing if specic standing
qigong practices will, in the long run, make you a healthier person on many levels. Do you
have to be an expert on electricity and the inner workings of your electrical can opener to
use one?
Many of the best instructors are fervent believers in the traditional approach to Qi and its
cultivation. Others, equally respected and skilled, believe that the traditional approach has
little relevance to modern students and that the benets gained come largely through the
physical benets of the exercises. At some point, it is essential for the serious bagua student
to research this subject and decide what he or she feels and what to incorporate in his or
her training.
In the end, it would seem to me that cultivating internal energy, no matter how you ap-
proach it, is largely a question of having faith, good intentions, and of letting go of your
doubts and preconceptions. Qigong is not a question of trying to master or control yourself,
or your energy, or that of others. It is sad that you frequently come across such approaches.
Many beginners are desperately seeking the ultimate truth, the ultimate master. They roam
28 CHAPTER TWO

restlessly from teacher to teacher, from style to style, looking for someone they can obey and
idealise rather than learn from.
Those looking for medical cures or emotional security are especially prone to being ex-
ploited on many levels. The last twenty years have been a fruitful period in both China and
North America for the proliferation of qigong masters, and the Chinese government, in
my opinion, is not altogether at fault for cracking down on certain qigong cults it views as
dangerous. The history of China is rife with groups that started off relatively innocently
and then became full-blown cults or agents of social revolution.
Leaving extremism of any kind aside, qigong experts rarely completely agree on details of
their methods. However, the competent ones usually agree on common principles and are
good examples of whatever they practiseemotionally and physically sound human beings
with lives and/or families outside of what they teach.

REGULATING THE THREE TREASURES

Even with competent instruction and effort, a complex martial discipline like baguazhang is
difcult to master. There are many aspects to co-ordinate. By contrast, the simpler standing
qigong methods minimise the physical aspects of training, so it is easier to concentrate on
the fundamentals of movement and posture in what is called Regulating the Three Treasures:
body, breath, and mind.

Body
Even though the body doesnt seem to do much work aside from holding itself up in a
relatively still fashion or moving simply in circles, it is actually relearning muscle usage and
body mechanics. The spine is stretched, relaxed, and energised to easily and efciently sup-
port the head and internal organs. The legs and hips are loosened, and their muscles and
tendons are strengthened while the knees relearn to naturally provide shock absorption
for the spine and head. Standing and moving are not as comfortable as sitting qigong and
meditation, so you must concentrate on the principles of relaxation and body balance in
order to do the exercises for extended periods of time.
In this way the entire body learns to use only the right muscles to do the task at handnot
too much effort, not too little. The torso and arms must, in particular, be relaxed. As the
joints and body loosen, your internal energy is better able to circulate properly. Think of it
as the Qi circulating through hoses which are often partially impeded by kinks of varying
degrees. The energy inside cannot ow easily until these bends are removed.
As the lungs expand, the spine straightens, and the joints relax, circulation improves often
lowering high blood pressure. However, even if you practise correctly, your legs and lower
back may get quite sore at rst. This is normal, especially if you are tense by nature or dont
have strong legs. Last but not least, using a standing posture means there is less chance of
getting drowsy. Similarly, keeping the eyes open reduces the chance of falling asleep and
collapsing.
STANDING AND MOVING QIGONG 29

Breath
Deep abdominal respiration helps to ensure that more fresh air is drawn in, and more stale
air is discharged with each breath. This produces a massaging effect on the internal organs
which is conducive to better digestive, reproductive, urinary, and endocrine functions. With
stronger diaphragm and abdominal muscles, blood circulation in the abdominal cavity is
improved.
Inhale and exhale quietly through the nose while keeping the tongue pressed lightly up
against the roof of the mouth. As you inhale, ll and relax the lower abdomen. As you
exhale, compress the muscles gently to empty the belly. Dont try to keep your chest from
moving, even though you want the breathing to feel as if it is centred in the lower torso. You
want your entire lower torso to gently expand and compress. Imagine that you have ball of
energy about the size of a cantaloupe co-existing with your organs, tissues, and bones in
the lower torso.
Sinking the Qi to the lower tan-tien does not mean overinating the lungs or swallowing
airyou are not trying to become a human blowsh! Use only the process I just described
(called Natural Breathing) in which you relax the lower abdomen when inhaling and con-
tract the lower abdomen when exhaling. This should be a gentle and long-term process of
relearning how to breath evenly, fully, and deeply. In this way you retrain the diaphragm to
rise and fall over a greater range so that the lungs are used more efciently. This augments
the capacity of the lungs, while the improvement in diaphragmic movement also produces
a massaging effect on the internal organs; thus, improving the functions of the digestive,
reproductive, urinary, and endocrine systems.
It is quite common, as a beginner, to get quite gassy when practising, so dont get embar-
rassed if you belch or pass wind. Over the months, your digestive system will adjust, and
this wont be as evident.

Mind
Although it is difcult to do, the conscious mind must be encouraged to give up its obses-
sion with endless mental activity. The Chinese refer to it as a monkey because it is always
scampering about being noisy and causing trouble. At basic levels, this does not mean that
you go into a trance, hypnotise yourself, leave your body, communicate with spirits, or be-
come superman. Just be attentive and connected to your breathing and to your external
environment. Counting each slow, gentle exhalation is an excellent way of doing this, as is
paying attention to the physical movement in the lower abdomen.
Some authorities believe that women should always concentrate on the middle tan-tien
which is located energetically in the area of sternum/upper chest. Other experts say that
women can use the lower tan-tien, except during their menses, when they should not prac-
tise or use the middle tan-tien temporarily. Others say that the best points to concentrate on
for both sexes are Yongquan. These are the only acupuncture points on the bottom of the
feet and are major gates for energy moving in and out of the body through the earth. They
are located on the midpoint of the bottom of each foot.
30 CHAPTER TWO

Focusing the mind in different ways should be thought of as a precursor to mental empti-
ness which is a different state from being either thoughtless or of being brainless. This at-
tentive non-attentiveness, as I like to call it, is both therapeutic to the spirit and conducive
to certain martial skills even though this is not martial practice per se.

BAGUA STANDING QIGONG METHODS

There are a host of standing qigong methods that are either unique to bagua or have been
adapted for use from other qigong systems by various instructors. The methods listed in this
manual are my interpretation of methods that I have practised and teach. Again, refer to
Erles books and/or videos for details on practice for those methods that come from him.

Quiet Standing (Wuji Posture)

The word Wuji refers to a Chinese philosophical concept. In Western terms you can com-
pare it to the existential void that existed before creation or the big bang. It divided into the
movement of Yin and Yang called Taiji (not to be confused with the martial arts that go by
that name as well), and Taiji gave birth to the universe as we know it. The Chinese call this
the Ten Thousand Things.
To describe it in a more mundane manner, stillness leads to movement, which leads to still-
ness, which leadsyou get the idea! Hence, the use of the Wuji Posture before and after
more active qigong training methods and martial forms. It seems funny to most beginners
that standing still and doing the minimum of physical work properly is the key to eventually
moving properlybut there you are!
You can also think of running through the following list of key points as a sneaky way of
getting yourself to stand quietly before and/or after completing a more complicated qigong
method or one of the forms. Standing this way as an exercise in its own right is also a way
of becoming aware, in progressive stages, of how gravity and bad habits (i.e., leaning back
slightly, keeping more weight on one side than another) can affect the human structure as
well as your bagua practice.
Tim Cartmell, an internal arts expert that I respect a great deal, suggests that standing this
way for a few minutes when you rst get up in the morning can be a way of gently encour-
aging your body to remember a posture that is structurally efcient and harmonious.
For a long time, you wont be able to remember all (or any) of these points when training
on your owndont worry about it! As in all aspects of your training, effort and ongoing
practice are the keys. I have appended, where appropriate, the Chinese terms. Use them if
you like as a memory aid. For the rst few months you will only have the correct posture, if
at all, when you are concentrating and correcting yourself on a conscious level; eventually
it will creep into your daily life.
If going through this mental checklist while trying to stand accordingly, start with the top
of the head and work your way down:
STANDING AND MOVING QIGONG 31

lift the top of the back of the head as if it is suspended gently from the ceiling. Do-
ing this properly will also assist in keeping the chin at the desired angle. (N.B. From a
traditional perspective this is, perhaps, the most important of practice.)
the forehead is smooth and free of furrows of concentration;
the eyes are open but not focused on any details, near or far; look at the big picture
around you;
inhale and exhale quietly through the nose;
the teeth and lips are closed, gently touching. Try to keep a slight smile on the face, as
this encourages the many muscles in the face to relax. Many of us carry a surprising
amount of tension in the jaw and facial muscles;
the tip of the tongue is resting behind the two upper front teeth in gentle contact with
the upper palate;
the neck is straight and comfortable, especially where it connects to the centre of the
skull; the shoulders are relaxed, and the scapula should feel downwards, relax and
drop somewhat;
the armpits (kuabridge) are relaxed and slightly rounded;
the arms and hands are relaxed and long; the elbows only slightly bent as if you had
a one pound weight held in each hand providing a gentle downwards traction to each
limb;
the palms are hollowed, the ngers long, relaxed, and slightly separated one from the
other. The only exception is the thumb which should be held a little farther away from
the rest of the ngers to form what is called the Tigers Mouth;
the spine is long and relaxed, especially between the shoulders
(ba beidraw/pull the back);
the sternum is empty as if you have just sighed deeply (han shouhold something
precious). The corresponding space in the upper torso feels comfortable and gently
expanded, as if it was lifting gently away and up from the centre of the chest;
the abdomen is relaxed. It expands as you inhale and compresses as you exhale;
the tailbone is relaxed so that the pelvis is tilted very gently, and the area of your lower
spine between the kidneys (mingmenGate of Life) is able to relax;
the crotch (kuabridge) is relaxed, and the perineum is lightly closed and lifted
(ming dangclose the inner groin);
the legs are relaxed, the knees are almost straight;
the feet are held with the heels together, while the toes of the feet form a ninety degree
angle in relation to the direction you are facing, or are held comfortably parallel to
each other. One of these methods will feel more natural to you, use it.
32 CHAPTER TWO

the toes are at, and the bodys weight is evenly distributed between both legs. Sink
gently into the oor, weight dropping into the centre of the sole slightly towards the
heels.

Basic Standing Qigong: Holding the Eight Mother Palms

Standing this way is designed to create physical heat by bending the knees, which creates
heat in the lower torso, said to be the receptacle of the lower tan-tien. The lower tan-tien
literally means elixir eld, and is a term derived from the ancient Taoist alchemical ex-
periments that resulted in gunpowder, liquid mercury, and a variety of metal alloys.
Their original goal in such research was to create potions and pills that could be used to
create precious metals and bring physical immortality. Some potions ended up causing
madness (one of the by-products of lead or mercury poisoning) and eventual death in many
of the alchemists, as well as at least one Chinese Emperor (which led to the rst major per-
secution of Taoists in China, but that is another story).
During their meditative practices, these Taoists also experienced an altered state of con-
sciousness accompanied by sensations of warmth and movement in one or all of three tan-
tien regions of the body: the upper, spiritual, centre behind and between the eyes, which
coincides with the extra acupuncture point Yintang; the middle, emotional, centre in the
centre of the sternum, which coincides with the point Conceptor Vessel #17; and the lower,
physical, centre inside the torso, just above the pelvic basin, which corresponds with the
point Thrusting Vessel #2.
The latter region is also commonly identied with Qihai (Conceptor Vessel #6), or Sea of
Qi, which is about three ngers width below the navel. This, of the three, is the most im-
portant as it also holds the internal organs and is the hub of many energy rivers. The lower
tan-tien also said to be the root of the tree of life. And, if you dont take care of the roots,
your tree is liable to be rotten inside, no matter how healthy it looks on the outside.
Heating the lower tan-tien by working the leg muscles causes chemical changes to happen
in the bodylike lighting a re under a cauldron of liquids to cause steam to rise. You can
think of it as a process similar to distilling liquids. The various liquids are blended in a pot
and boiled to produce steam which condenses after rising to produce a purer substance,
which falls back down to be boiled again and further rened before being consumed, stored,
or used immediately as fuel.
As an analogy to your personal practice, try to feel the circulation from the tan-tien through
the arms and in and out of the ngers or palms while doing this qigong. I agree with those
who say that what we have done in our modern life is forgot how to listen to our bodies, the
processes which should be natural. This is not the same as being obsessed with our inner
workings as is common in Western society, where self-absorbtion and obsession are so com-
monplace as to be seen as the norm, e.g., the Me generation.
Practising Standing While Holding the Eight Mother Palms can, in the long run, make you
a better person and/or a better martial artist. To see long-term benets, you need to prac-
tise daily from 1530 minutes at a time for at least one year before moving on to one of
the moving methods of qigong. The methods that Erle Montaigue recommends are safe,
STANDING AND MOVING QIGONG 33

simple, and effectiveand magical in the best sense of that wordif you work at them
with any regularity and diligence.
Details of Practice
Stepping into a shoulder-width Horse Stance with the left foot, assume a double-
weighted stance, with your feet parallel to one another;
the legs should be bent with the knees aligned over the toes, which are lightly con-
tracted, as if you were starting to pick a pencil off the oor with them;
the ngers are stretched apart with a slight tension, so that the palms are concave and
the nger tips are slightly clawed;
the wrists, with the exception of two postures, are normally held straight in relation to
the ngertips and forearms;
the tongue is pressed lightly onto the upper palate, with the chin pulled slightly in to
help lift the top of the back of the head;
the shoulders are rounded and the elbows hang;
the spine, from crown to coccyx, has an elongated feel and a slight C shape.
Hold each palm for one to ve minutes. (You can rest for up to a minute between palms by
keeping the hands in the lower position before moving onto the next when doing longer
amounts of each consecutively.) Inhale and imagine the Qi coming in through the nger-
tips and descending to the lower tan-tien. Exhale and imagine it being expelled from the
abdominal area up and out the ngertips while doing so. With time you will nd that your
breathing slows somewhat and eventually each breath will take about ten seconds each.
However, never try to force your breathing to be slower than normal; just relax and be
patient.
Symbolism of Each Palm: While holding each shape, it is wise to have a mental image
to correspond with each posture. It is often said in the traditional arts that the intention
leads the Qi, and the Qi leads the physical effort. At least for the rst few months that you
practise, I would recommend repeating the following description in quotations to yourself
as you begin holding each of the eight palms.
Heaven Palm This heals the head, including the mind and spirit, as well as the
physical structure.
Earth Palm This heals the left side of the torso, including the organs on that
side of the body, the skin, bones, and muscles tissues.
Fire Palm This heals the eyes, (considered the windows of the Soul in both
Western and Eastern spirituality).
Thunder Palm This heals the middle of the torso, (particularly, but not exclu-
sively, the digestive system).
Wind Palm This heals the lower spine and ming-men.
34 CHAPTER TWO

Water Palm This heals the kidneys. It is important to remember that in Tra-
ditional Chinese Medicine, the kidneys are thought to regulate
and be linked to sexual functioning as well as the strength of the
legs.
Mountain Palm This heals the neck and upper part of the spine.
Cloud Palm This heals the right side of the torso, including the organs on
that side of the body, the skin, bones, and muscle tissues.

Advanced Standing Still Qigong: Push the Palms

Starting from the Wuji Posture, shift the weight of the body onto the right leg, so that you
can extend your left hand and left foot forward while the right hand covers the centreline
and faces into the upper forearm of the left arm. All the weight of the body has dropped
into and remains on the right leg. The right Dragon Palm is facing the inside of the left
elbow and forearm area. Inhale and push with the centre of both palms while straighten-
ing the ngers. Exhale, while retracting the palms, and let the ngers return to the Dragon
Palm shape. Do 8 or 16 of these breaths. There should be minimal movement of the body
and the arms.
Use a Changing Step to retract the left side and extend the right side so that you can do an
equal number of breaths on that side. Do not move the weight from the rear leg and dont
use your arms to pushuse your palms! It is important to not overdo this exercise as you
can strain the muscles and ligaments in the palm and, in energy terms, you can raise up too
much Yang energy!
I am not quite sure if this is what Erle calls this qigong method, and it can be found on his
video produced in the mid-1990s that had the ghting methods, as well as the eight wrist
releases, the eight kicking methods and a variety of training methods.

Basic Moving Qigong: Walking the Circle

I have often read or been told that walking while holding the Eight Mother Palms is actu-
ally the foundation of bagua both as a healing and martial system and, like most beginners,
assumed that this was just a way to get us to put up with the tedium of basic training so that
we could get on with the really important stuffthe various forms. Well, wrong again!
The essence of the art does lie in walking in circles; but not quite in the way or for the rea-
sons the average beginner would assume. In fact, walking the circle does what it is supposed
to: strengthens the body in a variety of ways, providing a mild or moderate cardiovascular
workout in a small amount of space (like a hamster turning endlessly in its wheel but with-
out the smell of cedar chips!) while calming the mind and spirit. In the long run, nothing
else matters as much.
Many who practise in Europe or North America are obliged, due to inclement weather, to
do too much of their training indoors, and it can be tough for a beginner to walk a circle
without having a pattern to follow. But painting a circle in red paint on your wifes shag rug
isnt always a solution, as has been playfully suggested on a couple of Erles bagua videos.
STANDING AND MOVING QIGONG 35

If you are obliged to practise indoors, one way to achieve a circular path is to walk around
a torchiere-style oor lamp. These are normally tall enough so that you can walk freely
around its base while keeping one palm aligned with its shaft. Similarly, you can use the
circles painted onto the oors of gymnasiums used for basketball or oor hockey, although
it is not often easy to get the use of such facilities for something like bagua practice.
In parks frequented by Chinese practitioners, it is common to nd trees that have circular
trails worn around their trunks in the grass or soil. Using a tree as the focus of your circle is
a venerable and legitimate aspect of many different qigong practices, inside bagua and in
other internal systems. I must admit that I was reluctant to try it years ago when rst told
about it. However, it can certainly feel great to do your standing qigong with your arms em-
bracing a tree, or your palms held very close to the surface of the bark. Of course, pine sap
is awfully sticky in the Springtime, and ants can become a problem in the Summer,
and the leaves dropping on your head can be distracting in the Fall, and it can be bloody
cold in the Winter, and bystanders tend to think you are crazy if you are practising any-
where except in a park full of elderly Chinese.
However, in all seriousness, there is a lot to be said for practising with trees in this way.
Traditionally, the most benecial time of the year to do this kind of qigong training was the
Spring, particularly when the trees were owering. But Fall and Winter practice could also
be very benecial, especially when done with and/or surrounded by evergreen trees. Pines,
by virtue of their longevity and vigour, being particularly favoured for such qigong.
But, you dont have to be Chinese. In fact, any of us with Scandinavian, Germanic or
Anglo-Saxon blood had ancestors who were worshipping the oak trees in Europe as re-
cently as the Dark Ages, which is a blink in the eye for Father Time. So, hug a tree today for
a variety of reasons. It is better than chopping them down or beating on each other with
the exuberance of macho youth!
Details of Practice: The Tiger Step footwork, which is normally used for walking the
circle, resembles ordinary walking in that the heel touches down, followed by the outside of
the foot, and then the toes. This method is more practical for walking on irregular terrain
than the other major stepping method, the Slip Step. It is usually used in walking the circle,
both solo and with a partner, and in the Linear and weapons forms. Also called, in some
bagua styles, the Natural Step, this footwork requires that your body weight stays on the
rear leg as much as possible, and you always move the front foot rst when initiating a step
after having stopped.
The correct mechanics of the Tiger/Natural Step require that you land on the new foot
with the toes up and the knee almost straight. There should be little or no weight on that
heel as it touches the oor. Once the heel lands, shift your weight to bend your knee and
gradually let the sole of the foot touch the oor. As soon as the foot is at, all the weight
should be on that leg, and the other foot steps through to land relatively empty of weight
on the heel so that the stepping process is ready to continue.
While you shouldnt actually stop moving each time you nish shifting your weight and
dropping the footyou should be able to do so. Unfortunately, many settle for getting the
body mechanics, sort of, and end up walking in a oating or double-weighted man-
ner. Stepping properly at a slow or medium pace is essential for learning how to move by
36 CHAPTER TWO

repositioning a foot and only then smoothly transferring all of the body weight to that leg.
Learning to do this ensures that you can suddenly change direction if such is necessary.
I suggest getting used to walking the circle while using only one palm posture until you can
fairly easily do an inside and outside change, which are the only ways that you will change
direction while using the Eight Mother Palms. The inside turn is the most commonly used,
and the easiest, method of changing direction. For example, you are facing into the circle
with your weight on your left leg, and your left hand leading into the circle as you walk
counterclockwise. To change direction, you swivel on your heels as a result of having shifted
your weight and pumped your right palm towards the centre of the circle while retracting
the left hand to its guard position near the right elbow. Now you can walk clockwise. The
outside turn occurs when you are in a Scissors Stance, and you must turn on your heels with
both toes spinning around to the rear in an outside arc out of the circle. As you do this, lead
the turning action with the hand which will be in the centre of the circle so that once you
complete the spinning on the heels you have reversed directions on the circle. Great power
is generated using this method, but if you dont have good balance, dont lead with the cor-
rect hand and head/eyes, and dont have your feet in the proper relation to the circle and
to each other, it is easy to lose your balance while executing.
Once you have become accustomed to holding your arms in the proper positions, keeping
the palms stretched and the ngers separated, as well as being able to do inside and outside
turns as required, you should hold the eight palms, one after the other, while walking the
circle.
Counting the number of circles each way can help you keep track of time. If you are using
a circle proportional to your height, count eight of your natural paces in a circular pattern
to gure out what the proper size is for you. It should take 1530 minutes to walk the eight
palms while holding eight repetitions each way. Remember, you should hold each palm
while walking rst counterclockwise and then clockwise, before switching to the next. Erle
recommends another way of training which can be very helpful to the beginner. Record
on audio tape random numbers from one to eight for a 1530 minute time-span. Play the
tape while walking and try to change very quickly to the number of that particular palm as
you hear it said. Change direction using an inside or outside turn as appropriate. At a more
advanced level, record two numbers on the tape recorder. As the two numbers are heard,
change so that the left palm assumes the rst number heard while the otherthe second
number.
Training Tips:
As soon as possible try not to look at your feet when walking the circle by yourself.
This is essential, as most beginners will drop their heads to look down, which breaks
the key alignment of the spine. Keep your eyes directly on your lead hand as much as
possible while walking. This will prevent most people from feeling dizzy or nauseous,
which are common symptoms of walking for most beginners.
It is counterproductive to go too fast, as you are likely to blur the technical perfor-
mance of each posture, get winded, or lose your balance if your body stiffens as you
turn.
STANDING AND MOVING QIGONG 37

However, if you go too slowly, you are more likely to injure your knees or ankles
through poor alignment, and it is harder to use the waist and the change of weight
from one leg to the other to properly generate the turns and arm movements.
Be aware of the common tendency to drop the lead hand too much while walking, in
an effort to keep the shoulders from stiffening and rising up. In general, the tip of the
longest nger on the lead hand should be aligned with the tip of your noseassuming
that your head is held properly suspended to begin with.
Change to the new palm as you change direction using either the inside or outside
change. While it doesnt matter ultimately which hand goes under and which goes
over while switching, it is a good idea for beginners to be consistent. For example, al-
ways move the advancing arm over the retreating arm while doing an inside change;
and always move the advancing arm under the retreating arm while doing an outside
change. As you perform a turn, brush the forearms lightly together while switching,
and remember to lead that action with the new palm, not the old one.
Using a timer that beeps at preset intervals can be a good way of training for a pre-
determined amount of time. Try to change spontaneously as soon as you hear the
alarm. You will need a model that resets itself automatically after it beeps.
Remember, no matter how quickly you walk the circlewhether on your own or with
a partneryou should not develop any momentum from falling into position.

Advanced Moving Qigong: Holding the Eight Energies

Using the following eight additional palms while walking the circle is designed to help the
intermediate level student to develop the movement of internal energy: beginning with
bringing the energy to the lower tan-tien and legs, then to the middle tan-tien and arms,
then to the upper tan-tien and crown of the head, then opening the back while hollowing
the chest, then the chest is rounded and the sternum closed, then splitting between back-
ward and forward, then splitting between high and low, then, nally, tying them all together
in the eighth posture.
Some systems identify the eight energies with corresponding animals, real and mythic. As
with most aspects of this internal discipline, there is very little consistency between the
various styles. Walking the circle and changing smoothly from one to the other at equal
intervals are an excellent supplements to form practice or holding the Eight Mother Palms
while circling.
As with other forms of martial qigong, these walking methods teach subtle martial skills,
and I will add that the changes done when changing direction and/or method contain the
essence of these martial energies and directions. However, they are equally designed to
strengthen and heal the practitioner. (N.B. Erle does not teach this particular set; I learned
it elsewhere in recent years.)
Downward Sinking Palms/Tiger: Both hands push downwards, just below the navel,
with the mental image of holding the Qi in the lower tan-tien. The basic martial skill is
deecting a straight kick downwards.
38 CHAPTER TWO

Double Lifting Palms/Crane: The arms are extended to the sides, palms up, at about
shoulder heigh. This posture helps to connect the the lower tan-tien to the middle tan-tien
in the solar plexus and to spread the energy out to both palms in a balanced manner. The
wrists are slightly Yang. Focus on the palms as if you were holding something small and
round in the hollow of each palm. The basic martial skill is cutting with the edge of the
hand to deect, and thrusting forward to counter-attack with the same hand.
Heaven and Earth Palms/Lion: One hand is extended into the circle, palm up; the
other arcs above the head, palm up. This posture takes the energy that has been brought to
the middle tan-tien and allows it to ow up to the upper tan-tien located behind the Third
Eye Point (Yintang). The practitioner imagines that the Qi is owing through the arms in
a circular loop, as well as rising through the ground, and descending from the Heavens
through the spine. The basic martial skill is deecting with the back hand and breaking an
arm at the elbow with a striking lock.
Embracing Palm/Ape: The forearms are held together with both palms upwards; the
hands are being held as if they are cradling a bowling ball. This posture opens up the en-
ergy in the back, closes the front of the chest, and allows the Qi to ow into the hands. The
basic martial action is deecting downwards to strike forward and slightly upwards into the
throat or jawline with both hands.
Double Crushing Palms/Bear: This posture expands the energy in the chest by push-
ing the palms outwards, makes the shoulders very rounded. The image is of pushing the
arms out, down, and away from the body, as if crashing/crushing through any obstacles.
The basic martial action deects downwards and crushes both palms forward and down-
wards through the attackers chest.
Turning Palms/Hawk: One hand spirals diagonally forward and up, while the other
spirals diagonally downwards and back. This posture will help you to understand splitting/
folding energy. The basic martial action is to strike down while striking upwards.
Upper & Lower Standing Palms/Snake: One hand is held high and the other low. In
holding this posture, you learn to separate the energy between high and low, front and back,
while still remaining full and complete. The basic martial action teaches the cutting aspect
of the edge of the hands for both offensive and defensive purposes.
Twisting-Turning Palm/Dragon: One hand is held over the centre of the circle while
the other is open near the elbow. This on guard position is the signature palm of our style
and combines all the other energies and lines of attack and defence.

GENERAL GUIDELINES FOR QIGONG PRACTICE

Practise the most active qigongs in the early morning and the less active and quiet ones in
the evening. If doing several qigongs during the same practice session, do the less active rst
and progress through the more complex in the AM and reverse that sequence in the PM. The
idea is to be in accordance with the natural rhythm of the day.
STANDING AND MOVING QIGONG 39

Practise outside whenever possible, particularly in the Springtime, and try to do the quieter
methods barefeet, if possible. If you must practise indoors, try to do it on a balcony or at
least facing a large window, especially if you have a view of nature.
Dont try to adhere to a rigid schedule of progresssuch concepts are ridiculous in terms
of becoming healthier physically and emotionally. If you force the intensity of your train-
ing, progress will not happen naturally, and being natural is one of the cornerstones of in-
ternal training. Conversely, if you only practise when you feel like it, you are even less likely
to get enough practice to see any real benet. I have found that forcing myself to train when
I least feel like it has been benecial in ghting whatever stress was causing the reluctance
to train in the rst place (i.e., when in mourning for a loved one, when tired from the stress
of daily life).
Dont confuse the forest with the treessymptoms of Qi movement are transitory and
should not be the object of obsessive fascination (e.g., Yesterday I was one with the uni-
verse, and it was marvellous. I want it to happen again today.). Many people practise for
years without dramatic experiences or revelations, but that doesnt mean that they are not
beneting from their training.
Dont force the breathing in any way. That includes trying too hard to use abdominal or
natural breathing patterns. The breathing should be encouraged to deepen and slow down,
but dont try to force yourself to breathe correctly, as causing extra tension trying to force
your breathing is hardly a worthwhile path.
Dont eat a big meal, drink alcohol, or engage in sexual activity for at least one hour be-
fore and after practising qigong. In regards to the latter, there tends to be a wide variety of
opinions. For example, Dr. Yang Jwing Ming in one of his excellent texts on qigong recom-
mends at least 24 hours of abstinence from sexual activity before and after qigong.
With particular regard to food, when your stomach is full, abdominal breathing and cer-
tain moving methods will affect your digestion, and you can experience cramps or bloat-
ing. Similarly, dont practise with a full bowel or bladder. Holding it in will impede your
concentration on stance, breathing, and visualisation, and can result in a famous qigong
condition called Wet Rug. Conversely, dont train if you havent eaten in some time. It is
hard to concentrate if your stomach growls constantly. Have a light nutritious meal before
training.
If you think of your training as being partly to rene and produce a better quality of Qi, it
is important to have a healthy diet that contains sufcient and balanced foods while avoid-
ing greasy or sweet things. Nor is it necessary to abstain from meat or dairy products unless
you do so on ethical grounds or have an allergy to the latter. It is easy to fall into the trap
of thinking that no food or a severely restrictive diet will somehow purify you or make you
a better practitioner.
Dont train in either an excessively cold or hot environment. In particular, avoid standing
in the draft of an air conditioning unit when inside or facing the wind if practising outside.
When doing qigong your pores will be open, and you will be more likely to catch a chill.
Similarly, dont continue to train if you are wearing excessively sweaty clothing, as you want
to avoid getting chilled from both a traditional Chinese and Western medical perspectives.
40 CHAPTER TWO

Some authorities emphasise the importance of wearing long-sleeved clothing made from
natural materials, i.e., silk, cotton, linen, because synthetics can impede Qi ow. I have al-
ways preferred the feel of natural materials in my own training, but it is also interesting to
note that many of those who advocate the importance of wearing silk or cotton nowadays
are also selling qigong outts made of these same materials! It is also important to acknowl-
edge that some modern synthetics are excellent for resisting wind chill and wicking sweat
away from the skin, which minimises chilling when training outside.
Traditional experts also feel that long sleeves and long pants help to keep the Weiqi (our
innate protective energy) where it belongs, evenly distributed on the surface of the skin,
instead of leaking away from the arms and legs when the limbs are uncovered. It is easy to
get carried away with rules like this, though, and I think common sense and the weather
should dictate your clothing when you train.
Dont wear tight clothing, belts, or brassiere, as they may restrict the easy expansion of the
lower tan-tien or natural chest expansion. Traditionally, the lower and middle tan-tien ar-
eas are considered physical pumps for energy, this is why it is very important not to restrict
the in-and-out expansion of these areas.
Dont practise standing qigong if you have a fever, or are in the acute phase of an illness,
or are very angry. Moving qigong at a moderate pace is better for practising when angry or
very depressed, which psychologically is often interpreted as repressed anger. Normally, you
will feel more cheerful after having a more vigorous workoutthanks partly to the produc-
tion of endorphins from the physical demands of the moving qigong.
Women should stop or moderate their training during menses and focus on the middle tan-
tien while doing zhanzhong. This is a difcult subject to hand out advice onpartly because
I am a man, partly because female students each tend to experience different effects of their
training. Certainly, for those women who practise standing and moving qigong regularly,
there can be an effect on the severity and duration of periods. This is benecial for some,
not others, e.g.,My periods seem shorter and less painful, and I experience less PMS than I
used to. but If I stand while menstruating I become very uncomfortable. or My periods
are longer and heavier than they used to be.
Make sure that you dont close your eyes completely when training, but dont get mesmer-
ised by one point of reference in the scenery or your environment (i.e., xating on a speck
of dirt on the window or a particular branch on a tree) as this can also disturb proper at-
tentiveness and make you feel dizzy.
Dont practise when there is a dramatic change in the weather. Your training can interfere
with your bodys natural readjustment to the new weather patterns. This doesnt apply if
you happen to be doing one of the qigongs designed to aid in adapting to the changes of
the ve traditional Chinese seasons (Spring, Summer, Late Summer, Fall, and Winter).
Dont move your arms from the required position to scratch a sudden itch. Such sensations
are a stage many practitioners go through. Doing so interrupts the postures you should be
holding or doing at the time and means that the natural rebalancing of your body is im-
peded when your hands wander about consciously in this way.
STANDING AND MOVING QIGONG 41

Dont practise when angry. If you are interrupted by family, or friends, or the telephone,
avoid losing your temper. This is particularly bad for the Qi and the liver. Dont resume
practising immediately unless you have been able to restore your sense of calm.
Finally, if you are shopping around and learning methods elsewhere, dont do qigong ex-
ercises that you are not physically or emotionally prepared for. When in doubt, consult a
recognised qigong doctor. It is human nature to feel that you dont have to do basic qigong
exercises, as you have experience in other meditation methods. For most of us pride goes
before the fall, and it is easy to overestimate the value of your previous experiences.

DONT TRY TO SELF-DIAGNOSE AND HEAL SERIOUS AND/OR ACUTE MEDICAL CONDI-
TIONS EXCLUSIVELY THROUGH METHODS THAT YOU HAVE LEARNED FROM ME OR AN-
OTHER BAGUA TEACHERCONSULT A REPUTABLE QIGONG OR TRADITIONAL CHINESE
MEDICINE DOCTOR.

COMMON SYMPTOMS EXPERIENCED DURING OR AFTER TRAINING

You feel dull and scattered: On days when you are exceptionally tired, or mentally
fatigued, or just cant seem to focus on anything, or obsessed over the details of your train-
ingstop and go for a long walk, ride your bike, do something physical that interests and
stimulates you in a pleasant and moderate way.
You feel cold all over or in specic parts of the body: In the rst few months
of regular training it is common to have sensations of excessive cold in the extremities,
especially if you are a smoker or female, or to feel cold when practising standing quietly,
as opposed to moving qigong. If the feeling of cold is accompanied by pain, stop training
that method and consult a qigong doctor or acupuncturist. This may be the symptom of a
deciency of Yang energy.
You feel numbness or tingling in the limbs or hands: Some experts, Erle Montai-
gue included, have told me this is a frequent by-product of practising qigong and is a good
sign. It means the Qi is trying to get through properly in areas where it has been blocked.
However, if the numbness or tingling continues after you stop doing qigong, it might also
be the symptoms of nerve damage in the affected limb or of something like Carpal Tunnel
Syndrome. This tingling can feel like a mild case of when your foot goes to sleep, or it can
feel like the vibrating/buzzing sensation that you get when you place your hand on a small
motor housing.
You feel sore or in pain: I am afraid that some pain and discomfort is normally present
in the rst few months of training, whether you are doing everything correctly or not. Your
body/mind, probably, doesnt like standing still, and it sends you signals designed to make
you stop. Within reason, you should persist. Try tensing and releasing your toes if the pain
is in your feet. If the pain is in your shoulders or arms, try holding the palm shapes closer
to the body. If the pain is in the legs or lower back, try rocking the body forward and back
or side to side.
42 CHAPTER TWO

Of course, you can also be standing with your butt stuck out and your spine arched, which
means that you will experience pain for that reason. It is important to make sure that your
posture is sound when doing any form of qigong, you dont go too fast or try too many rep-
etitions of the moving methods. Dont ignore pain that is agonising, or sharp, or that persists
after your training session.
You get a Headache or Aching Eyes: Headaches are often a sign of Qi congestion in
the head and can be relieved by doing grounding methods or by massaging the appro-
priate acupuncture points on the body. You may experience aching eyes if you are staring
too much in general, or when you are doing methods that affect the liver or strengthen the
eyes.
Trembling: You could write a book on this subject alone. Many experts say that you must
experience a probationary period of time in which you tremble, sometimes violently, for all
or part of your qigong. Others say that you should never consciously induce trembling or
shaking as a means of inducing physical relaxation or of encouraging the Qi to ow freely
through minor blockages. You must also discriminate between the shaking that happens
when you are doing standing still exercises as opposed to moving methods, where the shak-
ing is more likely to be localised in the arms and shoulders and caused by excess muscle use
or tension. If you are used to doing meditation or are strong but relaxed to begin with, you
may never experience any signicant shaking. Speaking from my own experience, I nd
that I tremble and shake much less than a few years ago when I do my standing. And when
it still happens, it is usually on days when I was feeling tenser or more tired than usual. An
episode of shaking should subside fairly quickly, although you may experience aftershocks
a few moments later.
You experience excessive sweating even though you are standing still: There
are several streams of thought on sweating in qigong. If you sweat while doing self-healing
methods, you are too tense or using too much muscle, i.e., you are doing it wrong! However,
many experts interpret sweating as a sign that you are doing the methods properly, and you
are releasing stagnant Qi and toxins through the pores. The truth, probably, lies somewhere
in between. I was sweating like a pig when doing certain methods for the rst few months.
Nowadays, I rarely sweat when doing the methods I practise regularly. And of course, if
you are training outside on a very hot dayguess what? You should sweat!!!
You become Frightened or Startled: Many experts advocate training alone in a quiet
and private environment. You can become very sensitive to outside stimulia sudden noise
or a touch. Perhaps, it is like the phenomena you can experience when wakened during a
dream, when you feel disoriented and are not quite awake. I have experienced this and seen
it happen to others in my classes. It can disturb and scatter the Qias the traditionalists
would sayso that you feel agitated and upset for quite sometime afterwards. N.B. Some
experts maintain that your training should eventually reach the point when you can con-
tinue in a state of sung even though Mount Tai should collapse at your feet.
You have difculty sleeping: In general, the practice of standing and moving qigong
will be very benecial to your sleep patterns, as you become more relaxed and stronger in-
ternally. However, it is important not to do methods that are too stimulating before bedtime.
Although, depending on the season, your health, and the time of month, you may nd that
STANDING AND MOVING QIGONG 43

any method will energise you too much if done too close to bedtime. A rule of thumb is to
practise the most active methods in the morning and the quieter methods in the evening.
You start coughing for no reason: Assuming that you dont have a cold or u, the most
common cause of coughing is using too much muscle while doing methods that affect the
lungs. Smokers may also nd that they have coughing ts when doing even gentle methods.
Another good reason to quit!
You get aroused while training: This is a very common side effect to qigong training
and can be very disturbing to some people. It is important to remember that the Taoists
often had a very healthy attitude to sexuality and realised that sexual energy is an important
aspect of a healthy life. Some of the traditional methods are designed to restore normal
functioning to the sexual organs, and becoming healthier in general can restore interest in
such matters. Dont worry about transitory feelings of arousal while you train, and dont be
surprised if you dont start being interested in such activity again if your interest had waned
because of poor health or being stressed out.
You are hungry all the time or have lost interest in eating: Qigong can have a pro-
found effect on your metabolism. Quite often it will make a skinny person regain an interest
in food and gain weight, and a fat person lose weight even though they are not trying to do
so! Some methods are more effective than others in this realm, and the adjustment is partly
due to abdominal breathing massaging the digestive system, and partly due to a gradual
change in how you approach eating on an emotional level, i.e., if you eat to compensate for
depression or being overstressed, such cravings may cease as you become healthier through
your training.

CONCLUSION
Standing qigong is a marvellous exercise for beginners, although they rarely agree. It is
designed to teach fundamentals of posture and body mechanics, slowing the breathing,
and learning how to relax as much as possible while still doing work, and how to stretch the
ngers and the palms.
The intermediate level of bagua student should concentrate on walking the circle as the
primary qigong method. The one-legged standing Breathing Palms Method is also time-ef-
fecient method of martial qigong.
However, too much standing is not good for an individual. It can be addictive. I would be
remiss if I didnt point out that obsessively standing still in weird positions is a symptom
of certain neurological and psychological disorders. On a purely physical level it can need-
lessly stress the body. For example, circulatory problems (e.g., haemorrhoids) are common
results for those who stand excessive periods of time, especially when they dont get a suf-
cient amount of movement exercise.
One of my taiji students was apparently recently telling her Chinese acupuncturist about
the hip troubles that I have suffered in recent years. He was apparently surprised until told
that I did standing qigong and other internal martial arts. Oh, sometimes, people who do
a lot of standing qigong get hip troubles, was his comment. So, there you goperhaps I
overdid it and should have listened to my own good advice!
44 CHAPTER TWO

One last word of advicetime is inelastic, and it is better to know a few training methods
well and practise them regularly than to be a dabbler. Erle taught me other qigongs as well
that I no longer practise or teach. There are a host of others that I never practised regularly
available on his videos. Feel free to experiment with those or with any competent methods
you can learn elsewhere, but remember to focus in your daily training on those methods
that are most benecial to your individual needs.
Chapter Three
Fundamentals:
The Empty-Hand Solo Forms

As I said in the previous chapter, there is a tendency among modern martial artists to as-
sume that the forms, due to their difculty and complexity, are the more advanced ways of
training. In many schools, basic training tends to be glossed over in favour of focusing on
learning and practising a variety of forms. It is worth repeating that the essence of bagua
lies as much in regular and attentive practice of walking the circle by yourself as in the vari-
ous forms and training methods. The latter are recipes for nourishing food; the former is
the garden where you grow all the ingredients for those recipes.
As to forms practice for the sake of knowing another form, I remember seeing a television
documentary on the martial arts a few years ago. They were interviewing one well-respect-
ed long-term karate expert, Shihan John Bluming. He was asked why so many modern
martial arts schools seemed to focus on forms. His answer was short and profound (you will
have to imagine the heavy Dutch accent), Instructors love teaching forms; the hours go by,
and the money rolls in.
Cynical, perhaps, but there is an unfortunate tendency in modern commercial schools to
focus on teaching those things that require less one-on-one supervision, rather than repeat-
ing the basics of solo and ghting practice. Plus, modern students quickly get bored if told
to hold that stance or walk the circle class after classand they might take their fees
to another school!

DETAILS OF POSTURE

The Head
The practitioners head must be held as if gently suspended and with the neck feeling long.
Unfortunately, students often tighten the neck muscles in order to keep the head upright
and the chin pulled in. It is better to imagine that a small object is resting on top of the back
of the head and must be supported there through proper posture alone. The other way to
approach this is to feel as if your head is being pulled upwards gently, as if suspended, like
the strings of a marionette support its head.
46 CHAPTER THREE

As to the mind inside the head, the ultimate goal is to bring a mindless attentiveness to your
solo practice. This is, of course, easier said than done, and I certainly dont experience it
with any consistency during my training. It is also hard to put into words and tends to vary
with the form being done. One day, the Circular Form may have a smooth and wave-like
feelinglike being in a river and oating along in a mild current on a warm summer day.
On another day, the Linear Form can feel quite imperativelike you are a barbarian charg-
ing and shrieking to throw yourself on the unsuspecting Roman legions marching past in
the Teutoburg Forest. (Yes, I have watched too many historical movies over the years!)
Even though the gaze of the eyes should be unfocused when doing the Wuji Posture. If you
change direction suddenly while moving from one posture to another, they must express
attitude in the sense of looking forward through the lead hand or in the new direction once
you start to move. The gaze should not be lowered even when the practitioner focuses in-
wardly. The mind, as much as the eyes, is responsible for maintaining a sense of where you
are and where you are going while training.
The eyes are also responsible for leading the body in a new direction when a change of
direction is necessary. This is a difcult concept to get, as the natural tendency is to turn the
head instead of the eyes when changing direction. It take time to learn how to lead with the
eyes and turn the head properly at the right moment.
One of the reasons for not turning the head just any old way is it encourages the skull to be
centred and gently raised, as it should always be. If you were struck in the head (remember
the martial roots of bagua) or pulled suddenly by the arm, with your head loose and un-
aligned, you are more likely to be injured or knocked out.
Conversely, using your eyes properly but not allowing the head to turn, means that it can
become difcult to do some of the directional changes without losing your balance. In
addition, if you dont exercise them, the muscles of the upper shoulders and neck tend to
stiffen or atrophy to some extent. This is why you should supplement your form training
with other exercises or qigongs that safely train a full range of motion in the neck and, for
that matter, in all of the joints.
The lips should stay gently closed, and the teeth should remain in light contact. The tongue
stays raised on the upper palate. While there are different opinions on what type of facial
expression (if any) is appropriate, my own feeling is that a gentle smile is most appropriate
for setting the mood for solo training and relaxing the many small muscles of the face and
jaw. You may nd that the type of expression can vary spontaneously depending on the
type of form being done as well as your mood on a particular day.
Learning to keep the tip of the tongue gently pressed up against the roof of the mouth and
held behind the two front teeth is an integral part of the internal martial arts and qigong.
There are exceptions to this rule, of course. For example, when using a cleansing breath by
exhaling through the mouth, the tongue will drop temporarily away from the upper palate.
Similarly, issuing power by striking while using a HA sound will also mean that the tongue
drops temporarily away from the upper palate. In general though, the tongue stays up and
behind the teeth. Instructors who have been trained in a traditional manner may talk about
the importance of doing this in conjunction with lifting the Huiyin point between the legs
when inhaling or exhaling, depending on their preferences and to the type of breath being
THE EMPTY-HAND SOLO FORMS 47

done, to maintain a more efcient flow of Qi through the Governing and Conceptor Ves-
sels along the midline of the back and front of the torso and head respectively.
However, there are two other very pragmatic reasons to keep the tongue against the roof of
the mouth. Deep breathing can dry the mouth out surprisingly quickly, leaving that orice
more prone to infection by viruses and bacteria that more easily cross the membranes of
the mouth and throat under such conditionsparticularly, if you dont make a conscious
effort to only inhale through the nose. However, keeping the tongue lifted stimulates the
production of saliva which moistens the membranes and also has antibiotic properties to
defend against such infection.
This ow also stimulates the digestive system, which may also help explain why a very com-
mon by-product of doing qigong is feeling hungry after you train. Similarly, saliva is full of
hormones, and swallowing this uid during practice, as is often recommended, ensures that
these hormones are not wasted by being expelled. As Erle Montaigue has often said, only
partly in jest, the internal arts are very green (i.e., in favour of recycling).
Bad martial habits are easier to create than to correct, and one such habit is failing to
keep your mouth shut and your tongue in place behind the teeth and not between them while
practising combat skills with a partner, or while ghting. Over the years, I have noticed that
a number of otherwise talented practitioners have had difculty breaking the habit of let-
ting the tip of the tongue protrude or keeping the mouth slack while training. Such habits
are more likely to develop when there is little or no contact to the head as in most modern
martial arts.
It is one thing to constantly verbally remind someone that they should pull their tongue in
and close their mouth, but some have to be tapped in the jaw once or twice before they re-
alise how painful it can be to ignore the teacher about what seems like a meaningless detail.
Small details, like this one, are what make up the bulk of ones training once you are no
longer a beginner. From all this the seeds of true skill are sown.
Oh, and by the way, there is the issue of learning to avoid getting into a scrap that would
otherwise never had happened if you had remembered your teachers good advice to
hold your tongue. (I say this only partly tongue-in-cheek, which in itself is also a very bad
pun!)

The Torso
The entire spine to the top of the neck must be held straight but not stiff. However, a com-
mon internal arts misconception is to stify extend the spine in order to eliminate the curves
that nature intended your spine to have. While the area of the ming-men must be relaxed,
the admonition to straighten the spine does not mean to iron it out. The S-shaped curves
are meant to provide suspension so that your structure is exible and does not jar the brain
and the internal organs with every step.
One of the most important rules of practice is han-shou, where han means containing
something fragile or holding it carefully, and shou means chest. As han can also means
swallow or inward in Chinese, some practitioners have interpreted han-shou as bend-
ing or hollowing the chest inwards. However, according to some experts with real skill in
48 CHAPTER THREE

both the Chinese internal arts and the Chinese language (thanks to Tim Cartmell), a more
accurate interpretation of han-shou is to empty the chest or to let it do its job of being
empty in terms of heart/lung function. If those organs are tight or constricted, it is impos-
sible for them to work efciently.
It is a gross distortion of the intent of the early masters to tuck your butt in forcibly and
round the shoulders all the time while doing qigong or the forms. When you see real masters
of this artand of any martial art that can claim sound physical body mechanicsthere
is always a beautiful straightness to their posture. Strong but not stiff.
The lower abdomen should be like the chestrelaxed and emptyso that movement in
that part of the body can be led by the back and the waist. Traditionally, this will make it
possible to lead the Qi down to the tan-tien. Students through different exercises, depend-
ing on the style they are learning and the strengths and weaknesses of each instructor, will
gradually develop an awareness of the spine being the controlling component of vertical
circling.
The waist is in charge of horizontal turning and twisting, so it must be very relaxed and
exible and must not tip to one side (i.e., one hip mustnt ever be signicantly higher than
the other). The waist should be thought of as the crucial link between the upper and lower
halves of the body. The old masters offered a valuable piece of taiji advice that is certainly
relevant in bagua as we do it: If the movement is still not correct after the arms and legs
have been corrected, then the deciency is probably in the waist.

The Arms
Modern students, particularly those who are desk-bound in their daily work, tend to have
very tense shoulder muscles and a slumped posture. It can be very difcult to get them to
achieve an active relaxation of those areas. Do not try to fabricate the feeling by leaning
forward, forcing the shoulders forward and down, or sticking the neck out. Raising the
shoulders and pushing them forward violates the traditional stipulation ba bei, where ba
means to stretch and straighten, while bei refers to the back.
The arms tend to be overused in many athletic endeavours and underused in the internal
arts. The goal is not to move the arms as if there is no range of mobility in the elbows,
but to decrease the use of the arms in favour of increasing the co-ordination of the arm
expansion and contraction with the expansion and contraction of the body as a whole. It is
important to remember that the early practitioners of the internal arts in China were either
farmers, or professional bodyguards, or teachers of the martial arts. They were already
physically strong from years of working in the elds or from years of training. They didnt
need building-up the way most modern students do!
The wrists should remain relaxed throughout all the movements, and while it is desirable
for a variety of reasons to understand Yin and Yang in those joints, particularly for martial
purposes. It is even more important to avoid tension, particularly in the palm and ngers.
The ngers should be gently curved but not stiff and separated gently from one another.
The palm should be curved and soft.
THE EMPTY-HAND SOLO FORMS 49

If the wrong kind of focus is obsessively directed to the palms and ngers, sensations such
as trembling, heat and redness of skin, as well as feelings of fullness or tingling can follow.
These sensations can be symptoms of enhanced Qi flow, but are nothing special in the sense
that a student should not chase experiencing such phenomena while practising. They can
also be symptoms that you are overdoing certain aspects of your training and that your
limbs are protesting.
As to which came rst: the hands or the body. There is a strong thread in many tradi-
tional bagua styles of having the hands lead the body into positionas opposed to being
pushed into position by the torso/waist and weight change, as is usually done in our bagua.
However, body following the hands is not always inappropriate, depending on the martial
situation. It can be fascinating to try to explore how the various styles explore and label a
common set of body mechanics and posture. In Erles forms and methods the waist will
normally feel and act as if it powers and leads the action of the arms and hands. In prac-
tice, this should be almost simultaneous.

The Legs
The hips are crucial to supporting the work of the spine and waist, not to mention the
weight of the body. They must be relaxed and balanced. Despite not having a very large de-
gree of motion, they act as the leaders of the waist in many ways, and must open and close
in the same way that the shoulders must open and close in a co-ordinated manner. Some-
times merely shifting the hips in a rocking manner will provide the modicum of weight
movement necessary to power a posture when there is not enough room to move the feet.
A useful concept is to maintain the feeling of the torso lifting gently off the buttocks and
staying centred over them. This applies even when you lean forwards and backwards, as
you sometimes do in bagua, so it is a tricky concept to get. Do not let the buttocks protrude,
but at the same time dont obsess about tucking them in. Doing so is liable to cause tension
and tends to cause the tailbone to tip forward, off-center from the natural vertical plane of
the spine. Many people are built so that it looks as if their bum is sticking out when it is not
really affecting their postural integrity.
In Chinese martial arts, the term ming-dang means to close the inner groin and buttocks
area. Dang refers to the entire perineal area, and lifting this area is often misconstrued as
meaning that you must squeeze or forcibly lift the sphincter muscles. This is not a healthy
exercise if done to excess and will only improve sexual function in certain cases that relate
to weak muscles in that area. It is better not to pay any special attention to the rectum or
area of the huiyin, and instead try to remain relaxed so that the ligaments, muscles and
tendons can be fully relaxed. The eventual aim is to have a gentle lifting feeling in the area
that could be compared to wearing invisible underwear that is snug, not binding.
During training, the crucial joints of the legs are worked very hard in that they are always
bent more than in normal daily activities (sometimes very bent, depending on the style that
you follow). In addition, the arms can rest at times, but your legs must always work while
you are on your feet. Relaxation and sound posture (the knee and toes in vertical alignment)
help the knees transmit the weight of the body from the hips to the ankles. It bears repeat-
50 CHAPTER THREE

ing that your knees are not designed to be weight-bearing, but are meant to transmit your
weight efciently to your ankles and feet.
As to weighting, there are two major schools of thought. The more common version is
that the weight is momentarily more or less completely on one leg while the other foot is
repositioned, and then the weight is immediately shifted to the new leg. The other opinion
suggests that eventually being single weighted is meaningless in that the practitioner is
completely balanced, stable and mobilewhether he or she seems to be double-weighted,
perched on one foot, or standing on the head!
In essence, the latter expert (and they are very rare indeed) is moving internally all the time,
even though he may seem still on the outsidelike a gyroscope in its ability to right itself,
or the way in which a cat can adjust itself while falling to land on its feet. This kind of
footwork and movement didnt make sense to me from a logical perspective until I started
doing it martially.
To my mind, this implies many years of experience. What I call small step, big step has
become so automatic and subtle that it seems almost magical to those who can not do it. I
would suspect that every internal expert who deserves that label moves in that way, whether
doing Chen Style, Yang Style, bagua, hsing-i, liu he ba fa, or whatever. Of course, I could
be wrong. Ask my wife, apparently it happens frequently.
The ankles must be straight and relaxed to properly lead the feet. Practitioners are in-
structed to keep the foot flat as in the Slip Step, or to arch the sole in a natural mannernot
overly exed or articially attened when doing the Natural/Tiger Step. When moving, as
opposed to standing qigong, it is also important to not clench the toes when trying to obey
the teachers instruction to grip the oor or earth with your toes. This is as much a mental
activity as a physical one.

XIAN TIAN & HOU TIAN CONCEPTS

Xian literally means before, and tian means the sky or heaven. This phrase is com-
monly translated into English as pre-birth or pre-heaven training and is used to denote
innate abilities. For example, we now know that human newborns have the pre-heaven
ability to automatically hold their breath and paddle if suddenly immersed in water. This is
genetic, not learned, behaviour. In most bagua styles, the circlular forms and circle walking
training methods are classied as pre-heaven to show that they provide the foundation for
all further activities.
By contrast, hou means after or behind so that Hou Tian denotes skills and abilities that
are learned or acquired after birth. They are built upon the pre-heaven, innate abilities,
but must be learned and practised. Such forms are derived from the circular forms and
are more specically technique and ghting oriented. For example, an individual may be
able to learn skating without much training, and we would say he has natural talent, a pre-
heaven ability. With proper training and technique, post-heaven abilities, he can rene and
improve upon his natural abilities and skate even faster, or more skilfully, or even learn to
ght other hockey players.
THE EMPTY-HAND SOLO FORMS 51

PRE-BIRTH TRAINING: THE CIRCULAR FORM OF JIANG JUNG CHIAO

This form is sometimes called the Dragon Form and is practised to develop the power,
speed, balance, co-ordination and agility of this legendary mythical beast. In Chinese
myth, the dragon is a symbol of Imperial power as well as of Yang or Yin energy, and can
be portrayed as good, neutral, or bad in the many myths about it. It is not always the rep-
tilian monster or servant of the devil, as usually portrayed through the centuries in most
Western Christian thought.
There are many different versions of this Original Form, called that to differentiate it from
the other forms Master Jiang created during his career as a bagua teacher. I have seen
several of these demonstrated live and on video, and some are so different that you would
swear they came from completely different sources. In any case, Erle Montaigues version
holds up extremely wellespecially for the martial usagewhen compared to most of
what I have seen elsewhere.
Erle, like many good modern teachers, has evolved his own training methods over the years,
but the forms that he still teaches are much as they were when I rst saw them in the late
80s. One of his rst books, on both taiji and bagua, was rst published in 1984 and he is
hardly jumping on the bagua bandwagon, as has sometimes been unfairly said on the
Internet, just because bagua is now becoming fashionable in North America.
As to the Circular Form that he teaches, each palm change is separated by walking the
circle once (Change #7 is the only exception) using the slip-stepping method, then it is done
in mirror image to create a totally balanced physical exercise. While it is best to learn under
supervision, it is a good practice for the student to be taught the rst side and then teach
him or herself the reverse side, as doing so is a great mental exercise, and our brainsnot
just our bodiesneed exercise to remain healthy as we age.

POST-HEAVEN TRAINING: THE LINEAR FORM

Those bagua styles that teach some version of what Erle calls the Linear Form often teach
it as either two, four, or eight mini-forms, rather than one long sequence. Furthermore, a
few teachers insist that the ghting methods were never meant to be practised in sequence,
but should only be taught and practised as individual units.
Similarly, a couple of older Chinese books, illustrated with line drawings, I have seen trans-
lations of, call them The 32 Fighting Methods even though, when you count the actual
methods, you get 33, 34, or 36, not 32. The original set, apparently, ended with the Snake
Method. The kick method, Dragon Whips Its Tail, was a later addition. I have seen three
different such kick methods used even though each has the same name. Ah, varietythe
spice of life. Of course, spicy food often gives people indigestion!
As to the types of controversy that can bedevil those researching bagua, the most reliable
modern martial arts historians believe that the late Master Gao created the Linear Forms,
combining the bagua he had learned from Cheng Ting Hua with techniques from his for-
mer training in Xing Yi Quan and Shaolin Chuan.
52 CHAPTER THREE

I think it is best to approach the Linear Form as being a catalogue of the most useful mar-
tial techniques found in the Circular Form. I have also read that the rst eight methods are
the key methods in terms of martial practicality, and that there are less than 30 basic types
of application. However, from those you can make up an almost unlimited number of
techniques that are variationsdepending on your skill and the type of attack being used
against you.
Due to the length of time that it takes to have even a basic skill in its execution, the Linear
Form is becoming a rarity in modern timesfew schools still teach it, and many modern
teachers focus their teaching efforts on the Circular Form and selected ghting methods.

GENERAL TRAINING TIPS FOR EMPTY-HAND FORMS

As I said before, I will not repeat the details of the practice of these forms at a basic level
here. Erle has explained these much better in his classes, books, videos and workshops. I
will append what advice I feel might be helpful from my perspective of having taught this
material on an ongoing basis for over a decade.

The Six Directions

The six directions are, of course, another way of talking about the three-dimensional as-
pect of movement, that denes any efcient use of body mass and mechanics for qigong
and martial purposes.
When you sum it up on paper, these six directions are:
Up and down: the prime motivation in physical terms for this dimensional pair is the
ming-men (small of the back) as well as themuscles of the abdomen. While the arms
will move up and down, partly because of this mechanism and partly because of the
shoulders and elbows, this space between the hip bones and the ribcage plays a crucial
factor in separating internal body mechanics from a more segmented and cruder ap-
proach.
To the left and to the right: in simple terms this is related to turning the hips and
shoulders, or the waist area alone, from side-to-side as necessary. Again, connecting
the minimal use of the arms to this movement is what makes the internal approach
different from a more segmented/cruder approach.
Forward and back: in simple terms this relates to shifting the body weight forward and
back, as well as stepping forward and back. When you add the use of the waist for side
to side movement and the use of ming-men for up and down movement, you begin to
get the kind of physical co-ordination that is the foundation of any internal art.
Of course, it is much easier to write this or to read it than to understand what is being de-
scribed on an experiential level. A simple demonstration by an instructor who can actually
do the above is worth 10,000 words that the reader will only understand in his head.
THE EMPTY-HAND SOLO FORMS 53

Footwork
Erle recommends that the Circular Form be practised with the Slip Step, also known as the
Snake or Mud Step, which requires that your weight stays on the rear leg to facilitate speedy
footwork and to allow for sudden kicks. The feet are kept at on the ground. The front foot
slides, and the rear leg kicks forward and pauses before the entire process is repeated so that
the feet are pushed forward by the turning of the hips. It is essential to lift and place the
entire foot as a unit, moving heel and toe together.
While some styles allow you to lift the heel a little higher than the toe. This is physically eas-
ier. No good style that I am aware of allows you to lift the toes rst or higher than the heel
while moving that foot. It is possible to develop great speed with this method, and it is ideal
on smooth surfaces. This is the hardest of the footwork methods to get right on a consistent
basis, so it is worth focusing a lot of effort to get. Most people in my experience will be able
to do it reasonably well and consistently walking in one direction, but not the other.
This footwork is normally used to develop the ability to do low kicks, targeted at lower shin
and ankle height. Some bagua teachers state that this stepping method is really only suited
to beginners, as the Tiger/Natural Step is more useful in terms of adapting to a variety of
terrains.
The Linear Form, being concerned with practical martial usage, is done in a linear man-
ner. Various methods are strung together in straight lines and turn periodically after having
gone to one or more corners. The footwork is easier and more practical in martial terms.
You dont have to worry about Slip Steps, narrow Bow Stances and follow-stepping are
more commonly used.

Changing Directions
You will normally use the inside and outside changes the most in your forms, as well as in
partner training that involves walking the circle. However, other methods are occasionally
found in the forms and should become relatively easy with time and effort.
What I call the Screwing Step is used in the Circular Form, and occasionally in the
Linear Form, as a way of twisting out of an attempted arm lock to set up a shoulder strike
or throw (White Ape Builds a Nest), or as a sudden turn to block and strike, as in certain
postures of the Circular Form. This is always used after having wrapped the arms, and it
is very important to feel as if the hands lead in attempting this kind of directional change.
What I call the Swing Step is occasionally used in the Circular and Linear Forms, and it
can be very useful for changing direction. It can add a great deal of torque to your pulling
action if you have grabbed the opponents wrist, or it can be used to suddenly lift an attack-
ers foot with your swinging foot to imbalance him, or to drive your moving foot downwards
into your attackers knee, shin, or foot. This movement is epitomised in the Sixth Change
of the Circular Form by the footwork executed in Sweep Ten Thousand Enemies and in
the Linear Form by the posture Checking Palm to Abdomen.
54 CHAPTER THREE

Visualisations/Attentiveness
One of the many inherent contradictions in an art like bagua is that you should not rou-
tinely practise the forms as if imaginary enemies are coming at you from every direction.
Focusing too much on such martial intention can lead to a rather mechanical approach to
the form, as well as cause mental tension. Conversely, you cannot really learn the right tim-
ing for each posture without at least having a rough idea of what you are doing martially in
each case. In the absence of qualied instruction you can sometimes discover the spirit of
the movements by taking your cue from the names of the postures. For example, Pheasant
Throws Its Wings denotes a proud bird whose head is turned over its shoulder, wings out-
stretched as if sunbathing or displaying for a mate. But such interpretations are easy to get
wrong if you dont already have a strong background in the Chinese martial arts, language,
and culture.
Some of the movements are designed to be done in a fa-jing manner, but it is also a good
practice for beginners to avoid using power and vigour in an attempt to make the move-
ments of the form look and feel more martial and enjoy instead the movements for their
own sakes. Martial function comes from understanding principles, relearning how to stand
and move, and practising endlessly with a variety of partners rather than from a mere tech-
nical level of solo competency.
Particularly, if you are learning from Erles videos almost exclusively, I would recommend
practising each method or change for several weeksif not monthsbefore moving onto
the next posture or change. It also helps to train with a partner who is watching the videos
as well. Two sets of eyes and two brains are usually better at sorting out what is happening
on the screen and in your practice sessions. Oh, and you will need someone to practise the
applications with.

Expressing Power in the Solo forms

Except for the ofcial fast or fa-jing movements, try to avoid the common tendency to
make the postures look and feel more martial. If you tense up when speeding up to strike,
you will likely make your progress slower, not faster. Martially, it is not a good idea to wiggle
or twist excessively when doing fa-jing although this is often the initial natural result of
starting to loosen the waist. Real fa-jing is subtle and comes from the convergence of a
number of skills and physical attributesit is not just being rubbery.
As these forms are meant to be done quickly, it can very soon get out of hand in the sense
that moving quickly is conducive to striking your forearms and the more vulnerable dim-
mak points a little too hard. It is easy to get injured if you are striking your own elbow joints
instead of the eshy part of the muscles of the upper forearm, and even if your aim is ac-
curate, the amount of force used is easy to overdo.
Similarly, striking the air is problematic for most beginner and intermediate levels practi-
tioners. They are likely to hyper-extend their elbow joints in their zeal or have the energy
they generate rebound or get stuck in their own body if they are still a little stiff while mov-
ing through the forms. Fa-jing practice with any intensity should be saved for practising on
a mitt, shield, or heavy bag so that there is something to absorb whatever power you are
capable of.
THE EMPTY-HAND SOLO FORMS 55

Using the eyes

Be aware that the eyes always follow the active hand in solo practice. This implies that
you have to know where you are going in a visual sense. It is not just a question of mov-
ing around a circlesometimes you are working to the centre, sometimes obliquely to the
circle itself. It is also true that the eyes must be lively. You should lead the spins and major
directional changes with the mind, both eyes, and the head.
Being attentive both visually and mentally is essential. If the performer has presence and is
attentive of what he or she is doing when practising a form, then it can be assumed that the
form is being approached with some quality in mind and in a traditional manner.

Pacing
It can take many months, if not years, to ingrain the proper basic body mechanics of walk-
ing and the details of the postures within the forms themselves. In the beginning, it is better
to try and do the movements in a relatively slow and mechanical manner. I think that it is
very important to take your time learning this form, especially if you are only working from
videos or have infrequent access to a good bagua instructor.
Once you have mastered these, practise with smoothness and uidity in mind. However,
remember that the postures within each change dont ow one into the other. There are
subtle and less subtle pauses at the end of each martial set.
Walk slowly and evenly between the changes in the Circular Form. You can use more speed
while moving though the postures that make up each change. Again, it is useful advice to
remember to practise relatively slowly, although this is not Yang Style Slow Form practice,
and it is possible to try to do the movements too slowly. Many of the spinning or turning
postures will be easier if you use a little speed while trying to learn how to use them.
Similarly, the pace of the Linear Form is variable in the sense that it can be done very
quickly or relatively slowly, but never as slowly as the Yang Style Slow Form. I have seen
some benet to practising this form by stopping at the end of each individual ghting
method while going quickly and smoothly through each method. This helps to teach the
students learning the form where the martial chunks are, and to get them ready to prac-
tise interactively with each other.

Frequency/Intensity of Practice
It should go without saying that it is essential to practise the forms regularly, preferably
every day, if you want to see progress! However, it is better to focus your full attention on
that one repetition rather than to do them several times in a row while daydreaming, or just
going through the motions.
It is worth repeating that part of what makes bagua an internal system is the attention that
must be paid to being attentive in ones practice. It has also been my experience over the
years that intermediate level students tend to have trouble with the idea of paying attention
to what they are doing once they have learned the forms physically well enough so that they
can practise more or less automatically.
56 CHAPTER THREE

Daydreaming or not paying attention tends to settle into their daily practice, while quality
of attentiveness goes out the door. Doing a form competently should always feel and look to
an observer like you are doing it well for the rst time or the last. Perhaps, this is an attitude
to hold onto to help you focus on your daily training to make it really worthwhile. Quality
over quantity, so to speak.

Space Considerations
One of the curses of many of the traditional forms for modern practitioners is the amount
of clear space needed to practiseyour living room usually wont do. Many of us dont live
in an area where the weather permits year-round outdoor practice, especially when moving
quickly, lifting knees, and kicking preclude practising on snowy/muddy/icy surfaces.
There are no easy answers to this dilemma. The circle walking and circular forms are mar-
ginally more economical of space than the linear and weapons forms. These are important
considerations for modern students. It is a waste of time to start learning forms that you can
never practise properly for lack of space to do so.

Aesthetics vs Function
I have often been told and read that real martial artists think that training to make their
forms and postures look aesthetically appealing is a waste of time that could be better spent
doing more conditioning exercises or practising combative methods. Conversely, those who
prefer the more genteel approach tend to argue that the movements should be beautiful,
graceful, and that relaxation, sensitivity and a calm mind are ultimately more important
than strength and athletic ability. Finally, those who choose to compete tend to argue that
physical prowess and exibility are at least as important as anything else. Who is correct?
I dont think that there is a simple answer, and an investigation of this issue should start with
the concept of expressing the Three Harmonies, also called the Three Co-ordinations, in
your movement and postures when doing any internal art. Possession of this quality has
two complimentary aspects: the Internal Harmonies refer to the Xin (heart/desire for ac-
tion) being in accord with the Yi (intent/the will to act), and, in turn, the Yi harmonising
with the Qi (internal energy) which transmits that intent, which then harmonises with the
Li (power/the actual physical expression of the posture).
The Three External Harmonies are the co-ordinated expression of the Yi in that the hands
are co-ordinating with the feet, the elbows with the knees, and the shoulders with the hips.
In other words, if you pay attention to each movement and posture of the forms or tech-
niques you are practising, you are co-ordinating the internal with the external, and this is
the key aim in any internal training.
To put it more simply, the Three Internal Harmonies are about having a clear purpose in
each aspect of your practice and of being truly attentive. The experts would argue that if
you have been taught well and are trying to practise well, you will have a constant expres-
sion of the Three Harmonies, no matter what the main focus (combative, spiritual, com-
petitive) is in your training. If this happens, the movement of your body and spirit will be
attractive from a visual perspective to the casual and the trained observer because you will
be harmonious.
THE EMPTY-HAND SOLO FORMS 57

Strangely enough, this is also the foundation for effective ghting as you cant defend your-
self against a committed and skilful attacker unless your body is balanced, smooth, and har-
monious, as well as motivated by a unied spirit and intent. I know, this is a difcult concept
to get as common sense might argue that theatrical gymnastics and expansive movements
are better suited to competition routines than ghting. And real combative skills have to be
harsh and simple to be effective.
To compound the issue, the types of physical skills necessary to do Chinese Opera or com-
pete in a kung-fu/taiji tournament in forms are the foundation of combative training (i.e.,
you have to be strong, healthy, and co-ordinated to defend yourself). And even the simplest
and harshest combative action can be done so well so that it appears magically easy.
However, it is important to remember that such skill does not come automatically just be-
cause you can express the Three Harmonies through your solo practice! You cannot learn
interactive ghting/pushing skills without practising such methods with a variety of part-
ners under competent supervision. It is also true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder,
and you may, perhaps, have to be male to appreciate the beauty in combat between skilled
opponents.
There is also the issue of symmetry that relates both to the beauty and martial function.
Bagua normally takes the approach that it is essential to practise the forms in a symmetrical
manner, as it lessens the chance of overworking and stressing one side of the body. So, each
change in the Circular Form and every ghting method will be practised on both sides of
the body.
However, as to martial function, it makes more sense, especially in terms of making the
most of your practice sessions, to focus on using your dominate side. Human beings, with
few exceptions, cannot learn to be equally ambidextrous, and it seems like a waste of time
to try to do so. Of course, this does not mean that you ignore your left side if you are right-
handed, and vice versa. It only means that you focus on the whole body usage that makes
the most of your strong side. Any posture/method from bagua will work against a variety
of attacks on the open and the closed sidesif you understand it well enough. Symmetry
also implies that quite often both hands and arms will nish holding the same posture even
though only one was being used actively at the end of the application. Strangely enough,
not only does the posture look wrong to the practised observer if there is not such symmetry,
but the application itself will suffer. Dont take my word for itexperiment for yourself.
Anyone, whether beginner or expert, can appreciate the inherent quality of movement and
presence when a master does form the way it should always look (and so rarely does). I was
telling a colleague of mine recently that the highlights of my three decades of martial arts
training have been seeing the occasional example of outstanding skills done by masters like
Erle Montaigue, Sam Masich, Tim Cartmell, and others. These inspirational demonstra-
tions of the Three Harmonies in action have periodically reminded me of why I am still
doing this marvellous nonsense after so many years of training and teaching.
However, there is no need for us to feel inferior because we cannot necessarily reach such
heights, as each of us can strive to demonstrate, each according to his or her ability and
interest, that same expression of the Three Harmonies in our own daily practice.
58 CHAPTER THREE

CONCLUSION
It has been my experience that the Circular Form can take almost a year for the average
beginner to learn if he or she attends class twice a week. The Linear Form is even more
tedious to learn. It has so many methods, each must be practised on both sides when doing
the form as one long set, as taught by Erle. But mastery of any traditional internal art is a
life long journey, not a quick trip to McDonalds!
Many modern sport martial artists, as well as those who compete in mixed martial arts
ghting events, tend to look down their battered noses at the value of solo forms and deride
them as being a waste of time that could be better spent on sparring and conditioning. And
there is a lot of truth to this, especially if you consider how low many modern bagua teach-
ers have drifted in terms of their potential martial effectiveness anywhere except with their
own students in a classroom setting.
However, when approached properly, solo forms are the martial short hand of bagua
practitioners and provide a way of remembering, practising, and teaching your vocabulary
of techniques in the long run. Just be careful that your forms dont become meaningless
dances, and that you dont neglect the other aspects of your training. The three points of
the bagua triangle should be: qigong, forms, and applications.
Chapter Four
Fundamentals:
Basic Martial Training

Once you have been practising the qigong and studying the solo forms for some time, you
will normally begin training the martial methods. By then, you will probably have realised
that any aspect of bagua is harder if competently done than it would rst appear to the
uninitiated.
In fact, I will tell you the secrets of any aspect of traditional bagua at no extra charge: have
good instruction, train hard while paying attention to the quality of that practicenot just
how many hours you put into one session, be patient.
Having aptitude is certainly an asset, but it is less essential than having the three aspects
of what I call The Bagua Triangle. In fact, I will tease you a little by hinting here that
understanding triangulation is also the secret of understanding the famous circularity of
bagua whose study is, in many ways, the study of mathematics and physics.

WHAT MAKES BAGUA DIFFERENT IN MARTIAL TERMS

As I said in an earlier chapter, bagua has some rather interesting approaches to combat.
The most direct is to attack the aggressors arms or legs as he advances to attack you. Many
people, even those with ghting experience, will nd it painful and disorienting to have
their limbs struck. In combat, one of the key tactics (dont take my word for it, read Sun
Tzus Art of War) is to surprise the enemy and do the unexpected. Of course, this method
works best if you have considerable skill and are not much smaller than the person attack-
ing you.
When size matters, and it always does in self-defence, the other bagua approach is to move
out of the line of attack to avoid resisting the incoming mass and resultant power and de-
ect it off-course while counter-attacking. This does not mean getting out of the way. Doing
so will only work in a classroom setting, where your partner isnt really following you with
the intent to harm you for real.
Getting out of the way in a bagua-like manner implies that you are connected to the op-
ponent with at least one of your forearms or palms and have not moved needlessly out of
60 CHAPTER FOUR

range. It also means that you move diagonally forward, not to the sides or directly forward.
Stepping diagonally backwards is a second-class option that only works under certain situ-
ations.
Done smoothly and competently, moving forward diagonally is what makes you look as if
you have circled around your opponent to be in the position of advantage behind him or
her. You didnt really believe that walking the circle meant that you would circle the oppo-
nent like the Indians, riding around the wagon train that had pulled into a defensive circle
in bad Western movies? Circle stepping in any context teaches you about getting out of the
way properly, not about walking around in circles.
Getting back to the original idea of having two major approaches to dealing with an attack.
Ideally, you will learn to do both types of tactics in your training sessions even though a
much smaller person would be best to use only the avoidance method when dealing with a
larger attacker.
It is also important to remember the difference between working on the open and the closed
sides of an opponent. When ghting on the inside, and sometimes you have no choice, your
opponent has just as much access and opportunity to attack your vulnerable areas as you
have to attack his. But, if you are behind or outside your opponents arms, the opposite
does not hold true. You have access and opportunity to attack his vulnerable areas, he has
much less access to yours. In addition, you have superior positional advantage to take the
opponent down without much struggle, as well as the option to escape if need be.
In order to end a ght you need to dominate the opponent. If your opponent is bigger and
stronger, or has some practical skills himself, it will often be very difcult to do. This is why
when two people ght, the bigger and stronger ghter usually wins. If you are technically
far superior to your opponent, you can most likely put him down despite a signicant size or
weight difference. If youre not more skilled than the larger or heavier opponent, his greater
reach and greater mass in motion make it unlikely that you will prevail.
By the way, you should always assume that your hypothetical opponent is dangerous, stron-
ger and technically sound, and that having superior skills may be the only way you can win
the encounter.
It is also important to remember that bagua is an art that uses the open hand in preference
to the stparticularly when attacking the head. The rationale is that all your opponent
has to do against a closed st attack is duck a few inches, and you will end up connecting
with his skull with a real danger of breaking your ngers or wrist. These are the most com-
mon injuries faced by Western boxers despite having taped their hands and wearing gloves.
The other common problem is landing your closed st on an opponents elbows if he covers
his ribs effectively with elbows, which are very strong and bony joints.
With considerable time and practice, palm strikes, or those using the heel of the hand, be-
come preferable for these reasons. Erle teaches three main versions of the palm strike for
slightly different martial purposes. Finally, the open hand can be used to grasp vital points
or lock up the key joints of the limbs. The bagua style we follow favours open hand tech-
niques, but each of the two forms contains one closed st technique to remind us that this
weapon can be useful under certain situations and cannot be ignored completely.
BASIC MARTIAL TRAINING 61

The funny footwork used in the Slip Step is also a way of training the martial use of your
own feet and shins as offensive and defensive tools. One of the hallmarks of bagua is the
way in which a practitioner uses his or her feet while doing toe-in steps, to trap an attackers
legs and balance whenever possible while in close range. If you are crowding an attacker
without tensing up or losing your balance, it will be more difcult for the aggressor to
continue their attack effectively. The same applies if you are kicking their shins, stepping
on their feet or striking the vulnerable areas of the inside and outside of their knees while
doing toe-out steps, with hands doing the necessary martial work.

THE BASIC MARTIAL CURRICULUM

Developing some competency in the following training methods is essential if you hope to
begin understanding bagua as a martial art. I have tried my best to remain true to Erles
instruction while blending in methods from other instructors that seemed useful.
In this context, I have tried to live by some very good advice I received from one of my
former taiji instructors, Alan Weiss. He suggested, as I continued to train and develop my
understanding of taiji and bagua, that I focus on being a rst-rate Michael Babin rather
than a second-rate Erle Montaigue.
Consequently, my interpretation of the forms and methods that do come from Erle, without
doubt, reect both my own aptitudes and inadequacies. Dont blame him if you disagree
with what you read, or what I have taught you!
The forms and methods are listed in the order you would normally learn from me. The text
on each is designed to supplement, and not replace, the guidance of competent one-on-one
instruction. Consequently, I make no apologies for being vague or incomplete in my advice
on these various methods.
If you are reading this and have never had my guidance or that of a competent bagua
instructor, whether he or she is in the WTBA or not; it will be hard to gain more than a su-
percial understanding of the following text.

Basic Warm-up Methods

The following exercises are all used in traditional bagua styles, although none come from
Erle Montaigue. I have picked them up from a variety of sources (workshops and videos).
Before beginning any martial training it is a good idea to get the torso and limbs warmed
up. Similarly, when you have nished such training, it is smart to do a little cooling down
with a few of these exercises or whatever stretches you may prefer.
If you are using these exercises as a way of preparing for qigong, form work, or martial
training, then you should do them in the order shown, starting with Holding Up the Heav-
ens and nishing with Shaking the Body. If you have been doing standing qigong rst, then
I would recommend that you start with Shaking the Body and then follow the order shown
below.
These exercises are designed to strengthen and loosen the body and teach particular body
mechanics. Some of them also introduce specic jings, or martial principles; but dont think
62 CHAPTER FOUR

of these as being techniques. They are ways of starting to understand bagua principles that
apply to both self-healing and the combat methods.
Dont do these exercises too slowly or too quickly. And even at a moderate speed, you wont
normally try to co-ordinate your breathing with your actions on a conscious level unless
specically told to in certain exercises. Please ensure that you dont accidentally hold your
breath for extended periods. Lack of oxygen leads to muscle tension, and vice versa. If you
nd that you get breathless doing any of these, you are probably going too fast, doing too
many repetitions, or holding the breath.
Always begin with the quiet standing posture before stepping out to the left side with the
left foot. Reverse that to return to the quiet standing posture. Do four or eight repetitions
of each exercise on each side.
Exercise One: Holding Up the Heavens/Strengthens the Spine and Arms. This
gently twists the spine and helps to increase or maintain the elasticity of the spine, shoulders
and sides of the torso. With the arms lengthening up over the head, a natural abdominal lift
is created, which tones the abdominal walls. The internal organs are also gently massaged
by the rhythmic breathing. The chest is expanded. Pressure is taken off the heart and lungs
by opening the chest cavity. With your knees straight, but not locked, interlace the ngers,
palms up, in front of the waist and raise the hands slowly until the palms turn to face up-
wards when the backs of the hands are directly above the top of the head. As you do this,
inhale while letting the stomach muscles gently contract inward and upwards, pushing your
interlocked hands straight up over your head. Push them up until your arms are straight.
Gently exhale and relax the stomach muscles and, as you do so, let the body turn to the left.
Be sure that you have the feeling of lengthening up, arms as well; and that your hips do not
move. Also be sure that you do not collapse or slump as you exhale. Try not to lean to the
side. Relax. Inhale, letting the stomach muscles gently contract inward as you turn back to
face forward, always lengthening up. Repeat to the right side. Remember to keep the hips
from turning. Keep lengthening up. Exhale slowly, and as you do so, let your hands drop
slowly to the sides while maintaining feeling of extension to your ngertips.
Exercise Two: Rotating the Grindstone/Co-ordinating Posture and the Bow
Stance. Step diagonally to the left, as your hands hold the grindstone (as if your hands
are cupping a stone shaped like a bowl held upside down) at waist height. Circle the hands
in a counter-clockwise fashion while shifting the weight forward and back. Inhale as you
come back, exhale as you go forward. Do four or eight repetitions, and then retract the left
foot and hands to the starting spot. Repeat on the right, but with the hands grinding in
a clockwise fashion. Dont bend and straighten your elbows once you are holding onto
the grindstone. The idea is to use the co-ordinated movement of your waist and spine
to move your arms in the required pattern. Dont lean too far forward when in the Bow
Stance, and straighten up as you shift the weight back. Do an equal number of repetitions
on each side.
Exercise Three: Bending the Heavenly Stem/Stretches and Strengthens the
Lower Back and Legs. Step to the side with the left foot into a moderate Horse Stance
and position your arms as if you were holding a beach ball in front of the torso, with the
left hand underneath and the right hand above. Exhale while rolling and wrapping the left
BASIC MARTIAL TRAINING 63

hand overhead, appearing to lean back as far as possible as the right hand drops simultane-
ously. (N.B. Your lower back drops, the inguinal folds crease, and the knees and legs do most
of the actual work.) As you straighten up, inhale and then, switching the hands again, lean
forward so that your torso forms a 90 degree angle with your legs. Your right palm will be
pushing forward, and your spine will be as straight as possible. Keep the chin tucked in at
all times. Remember to exhale as you bend forward or back, and to inhale whenever you
are straightening. Do an equal number of repetitions on each side.
Exercise Four: Wrap & Chop/Trains Co-ordination Between the Upper and
Lower Body. Stepping to the side with the left foot, assume as wide a Horse Stance as
possible. Shift/swivel from side to side, turning smoothly on the heels (dont let the toes lift
too high as you do this), as you rst chop with the edge of one hand before wrapping the
arms and nishing with a second chop with the other hand. It is important to remember
that your torso and arms will have to move faster than your waist and legs if you are to ac-
complish two chops on each swivel. At the end of each swivel, the rear hand should feel as
if it is holding an opponents wrist that you caught after having intercepted a punch with
your initial chop. Your front hand does the nal damagefeel with the hammer portion
of the lower outside edge of the Dragon Palm. Allow your head to turn with the torso, but
remember that your eyes and attention must stay to the front where the opponent would
be standing if you were doing this as martial technique. Do an equal number of repetitions
on each side.
Exercise Five: Twisting the Tea Cups/Trains exibility in the Arms and Shoul-
ders. This method is done in a moderate Horse Stance (ma-bu), and only the waist and
arms will move. Start on the left side and imagine that you extend your left palmdont
drop your invisible cup of tea cradled in the palm of that handby twisting the wrist so
that the ngers go to the left side, and then forward and upwards over the head, and then
down to the front before coming back to stop momentarily by the left hip. Dont spill your
tea while doing this, and you will go a long way to stretching and relaxing your shoulders,
elbows and wrists. (N.B. the advanced version of this dictates that you never let one hand
rest by the hip while the other movesboth will be constantly moving until you have done
an equal number of repetitions on each side.) The other way to make your training more
challenging is to hold round objects of varying sizes and weights while practising. I have
used croquet balls and Bocce balls as improvised bagua spheres. The heavier the object, the
better the training in terms of building strength and exibility, but be careful that you dont
overdo this. I have seen old photos of masters walking the circle while holding and twirling
stone balls of impressive sizes. So, this is a traditional, and challenging, way to practise. Do
an equal number of repetitions on each side.
Exercise Six: Changing the Guard/Trains the use of the Changing Step as well
as how to use the Palms. This method uses the posture recommended for the advanced
standing qigong method I described earlier, Push the Palms, but instead of holding each
side for a certain number of breaths you retract and extend each side alternating from left
to right. For example, this necessitates that you lift and retract the left foot as you retract the
left arm. Place the left heel back next to the right heel, and then extend the right arm and
leg. This teaches you to do a Changing Step, which is a very valuable way of mobilising the
momentum of your body weight when you dont have enough room to step more normally.
64 CHAPTER FOUR

It also teaches you to lift your front foot before retracting it, so that you could avoid having
it trapped by someone else trying to immobilise your leg with a toe-in stance. Do an equal
number of repetitions on each side.
Exercise Seven: Rising and Falling/Strengthens and loosens the hips and but-
tocks. This method is done while in a moderate Horse Stance and consists of dropping
the torso by bending the knees and folding the inguinal area while exhaling. As you do this,
extend your arms forward, palms up, and to the height of the shoulders. Dont bend your
knees excessively and dont drop so low that your thighs exceed being parallel to the oor.
You can lean forward slightly as you drop, as long as the spine is straight, and you dont
incline forwards excessively. As you inhale you will reverse this process and rise up to your
original position.
Exercise Eight: Shaking the Body/Relaxes the Body and Stimulates the Hor-
mone-producing Organs. Pause for a few moments after completing the previous ex-
ercise and, with arms still hanging at the sides, bend both knees slightly and start gently
vibrating the body from head to feet. In the beginning you may need to start this process
by bouncing up and down by alternately bending and straightening the knees. Keep the tip
of your tongue pressed lightly upwards on the upper palate, but do not force the mouth to
remain closed, or hold your breath, or try to co-ordinate it in any way with the shaking and
trembling. Dont let the latter become violent spams. You should feel a mild trembling of
the muscles and tissues in all parts of the body. Do this for roughly a minute in a continuous
manner. This ecercise is relaxing once you get the hang of it. It helps to regulate glandular
function for the purpose of building helth and preventing sexual dysfuncion. Particularly
in terms of traditional Taoist thought, the most important hormons are those produced by
the sexual organs, as these are used in the production of Qi. In addition, shaking relaxes
the muscles and joints in general.
TWO-PERSON TRAINING METHODS
I shouldnt have to say this to anyone with any real martial experience, but since many mod-
ern students dont fall into that category, and are a little hard of hearing, I will shout:
YOU HAVE TO PRACTISE THE INTERACTIVE METHODS WITH OTHER HUMAN BEINGS TO HAVE ANY
HOPE OF LEARNING HOW THEY MIGHT WORK IN A CONFRONTATIONAL SITUATION.

Sad to say that there are still many internal arts teachers who tell their students that you
dont have to sweat, or get bruised, or make contact with your training partner to learn
how to apply the postures and principles of an internal art. I dont know what is worse:
those misguided or fraudulent teachers making money and gratifying their egos by teach-
ing rubbish, or the many students who swallow rubbish because they would rather believe
that wearing spiffy costumes, walking in circles any which way, and being able to discuss the
I-Ching can compensate for working hard physically.

Rooting/Grounding Methods (Stationery and Moving)

Rooting and sensitivity exercises are essential foundation skills in the martial practice of any
internal arts, although they should not become the golden idols, which so many modern
instructors seem to worship. Most are relatively safe and useful methods of training stu-
BASIC MARTIAL TRAINING 65

dents how to read another persons body movements through contact, while creating and
maintaining a stable lower centre of gravity in themselves.
However, it is essential for instructor and students alike to remember that such games create
skills that do not, by themselves, automatically bring self-defence abilities. Being sensitive
and having an immovable root can be a liability if your partner doesnt play by the rules
(e.g. by suddenly moving to get behind you, or simply striking) and you are unable to adapt
instantly to such cheating.
In regards to the latter, please remember that the other side succeeds by cheating. When you
do something unexpected, having done so is sound strategy. Isnt rationalisation wonder-
ful? The exercises that we do are designed to help the student physically understand how
important it is to be upright and rm, yet relaxed, while always having the potential for
balanced movement.
In one stationary version of this exercise, one student assumes and holds what I call the
Guard Posture while his or her partner pushes slowly and a bit stify (at least until the re-
cipient gets the hang of relaxed heaviness) on either a forearm, shoulder, or the abdomen.
All the student has to do is stand there without moving with as little physical effort or move-
ment as possible.
The person being pushed upon should imagine that they are like a child or pet that resists
being picked up by going dead weight. Try lifting a 30 lb toddler or dog that doesnt want
up. They suddenly feel like they weigh twice or three times there actual weight. That is be-
cause their relative relaxation makes it harder for you to nd the stiff bits that can operate
as the fulcrum for you to lever them upwards. Similarly, which is harder to lift20 pounds
of iron chain or a similar weight of iron plate?
In the moving version of this method, your partner pushes properly from the waist and with
connectivity to the ground while stepping through your space. The person reacting to that
has to stick to their incoming force and deect it off course as he steps diagonally to the
corner or swivel on one leg and move the other. One arm comes up to help you deect and
keep your partners hand away from your torso; the other pretends to strike the pushers
torso or head.
There are a variety of martial applications possible, but try to keep it simple and non-com-
petitive. Remember to push and step at the same time, and experiment with how much
force you give your partner. You should nd that stepping and pushing stify makes you fall
forward somewhat or lurch if your partner applies the correct pressure and method while
swivelling out of the way of your pressure.

The Conditioning Applications Set

Both partners start by standing in a moderate Horse Stance (ma-bu is a foundational stance
in most forms of Chinese martial arts) and facing each other with their palms pressing down
by their hips. They should be positioned just out of punching range for the taller partner.
Starting this way minimises the chances of accidental contact to the wrong targets.
One person is designated the leader, and he or she initiates the movement of each method
in this little two-person setsave one, so that the leader doesnt get complacent and forget
66 CHAPTER FOUR

that there are always exceptions to every rule. The goal is for the other person to play fol-
low the leader and counter whatever technique or footwork is used against him with the
same method. After having gone around once, the other person can take the leadership
role, and the exercise can continue this way indenitely, with both people alternating in the
lead role for a preset period of time.
This is my variation of a common training method for beginners in other styles, and it
teaches the student to defend with what I call grinding power with the outside of the fore-
arms (primarily Number Four and Number Six palms) while deecting the attack, rather
than confronting it. It also teaches how to use the most common stepping and directional
change methods and to follow properlynot too soon, not too lateand to use your body
to pull, rather than your arm alone.
Remember to take turns leading. You will discover, it is very difcult to use the right tim-
ing to counter at the correct moment even when you know what the other person will be
doing. As with any basic exercise, it is easy to let yourself accelerate and to use too much
brute strength, as opposed to learning how to deect or counter by striking when this is
appropriate.
Although it is not done excessively, this exercise is a good introduction to learning to take
some force with your arms and to not let such impacts affect your mobility or ability to stay
functionally relaxed.
Joining Legs: Each person will stand in front and a little to one side of his partner, on one
leg while connecting the outside of the other lifted knee to the outside of his partners lifted
knee. The heels of both lifted legs should be in contact. You should connect the wrist/fore-
arm on the same side to your partners wrist/forearm.
In the beginning it can be a bit of a struggle for both people just to stand there connected
without one or both losing their balance. While doing either of the two exercises discussed
here, you should switch supporting legs whenever one person falls over or loses the contest.
Do not this exercise for too long at any one time.
Vertical Power Exercise: This two person exercise strengthens the legs, particularly the hips.
It improves co-ordination and balanceparticularly the ability to make vertical circles with
the hip being the axis of the wheel. It is important to lean forward and back without com-
promising your ability to move or remain in a state of equilibrium, even when leaning at
weird angles. In bagua, vertical power is quite often used to initiate a kick, or to evade a
head strike from the opponents hand. Remember to use the waist and hip on the support-
ing leg to do most of the work. You can lead either with the hand or the hooking legbut
do not let the action become simultaneous. Erle doesnt emphasise this tactical application,
but it is common in other competent versions of bagua, and I think it is important to be
able to do it.
Horizontal Power Exercise: Like the rst, this exercise strengthens the legs, particularly the
hips, and improves co-ordination and balance, especially the ability to use horizontal turn-
ing and twisting to deect upper body and low foot attacks.
BASIC MARTIAL TRAINING 67

There are also ways of practising this where you practise kicking attacks and defences, but
that is more suited to advanced students and resembles in some ways the sticky legs exer-
cises used in some Chen Styles and in some Wing-Chun variations.

The Eight Wrist Releases

This is basic training on using the Eight Mother Palms to defend against a passive grab by
your partner. A couple of the methods that I teach are slightly different from those taught
by Erle if you refer to his videos or books.
Remember to stretch the Dragon Palms when your partner starts to squeeze/grab your
arm, as on the street this would normally be an unconscious and unintended warning signal
that the grabber is about to hit you with the other hand. Use this to your advantage. To do
this, your attention must be focussed on listening at the point of contact. Being sensitive
to subtle physical cues is an essential aspect of any internal art.
Try to get used to doing the correct follow-up for each method, and to use the right method
for the appropriate grab. With competence and long term training, you will nd that each
method can be used, usually with very little modication, against a variety of common
grabs, not just those you are accustomed to.
Be careful that you dont use brute forceeither as the dummy or the person practising the
method. Also be careful when in the dummy role that you dont remain too relaxed, espe-
cially if you have learned elsewhere to grip strongly despite being relaxed. In the beginning,
the student needs some stiffness in the grab to be able to make it work relatively easily.
You will probably nd, as you develop some skill, that it becomes a natural reaction to start
countering whatever is being done to you. Try to learn to turn such skills off and on, as you
dont do the less experienced student any favours by making it harder than necessary for
him or her to explore each of the eight basic wrist releases.

The Eight Kicking Methods

You must learn a variety of coping methods for dealing with the possibility of low kicks
aimed at the feet (the pain can be distracting, or result in knockout, or sweep you to the
ground), shins (the pain is distracting), or at the knees (a shattered joint makes it hard to
continue a ght, or a locked-out knee makes it liable that you be thrown or imbalanced).
At the highest levels you attack when kicked or move the target leg out of harms way, how-
ever, you should also practise a variety of ways of kicking the attacking leg.
Thats what this little four-method exercise is for. In the beginning it is okay to hold each
others wrists to help maintain balance. Remember to swivel on the ball of the supporting
foot in order to gain short-range power for some of the kicks. It is wise for the attacker
to wear good quality shin pads even if you have reasonably good control of how hard you
strike. Switch turns and partners frequently, so that one persons shins are not prematurely
bruised or hurt excessively. A certain amount of toughening is good, but nerve damage or
hair-line fractures in the leg bones are not!
68 CHAPTER FOUR

HAMMER HANDS APPLICATIONS SET

This training method is a bit more complex than the Conditioning Set and I have named it
Hammer Hands in honour of Erle, whose hands certainly can feel like hammers when he
uses them against you, even in friendly training.
I have mixed feelings about sparring or applications sets. Some that I have seen in other
styles of bagua are ridiculous in the complexity of their movement or require a level of
co-operation from your partner that would merit an Academy Award for acting. Others
are simple in design, but work best against attacking methods common in the China of a
century ago. You are unlikely to encounter them in the present day.
It is also easy for such sets to become an overly choreographed ritual which brings a false
sense of security as to your self-defence ability. However, competent examples can provide
a real challenge to the intermediate level student as, unlike a solo form, forgetting the next
move might mean that you get hit in the nose by accident. When accidents such as those
just mentioned happen, it is good to have developed the ability to use controlled contact,
maintaining the concept of sustained effort for technique after technique without becom-
ing breathless or stiffening your movements, and learning applications on a body level
instead of as an intellectual abstraction.
In fact, you must, in some ways, do many of the specic techniques incorrectly for your
partners safety, unless both participants are of equal size and skillincorrectly in the sense
of not going too fast or using explosive energy. In relation to this caveat, it is also true that
owing from one technique to the other requires that neither partner ever nishes a tech-
nique. If you dont have competent instruction, you may never actually get a feel for how
each method could work if it wasnt countered skilfully.
Two-person sets, whether simple or complex, act as a martial bridge for many students to
bring them to the edge of spontaneity in a martial sense. Conversely, if two-person sets
become a choreography, as is often the case, then the martial lessons to be learned tend to
be supercial. I have always found it interesting in my own students that those who take
most naturally to free sparring of any kind usually have the least patience or aptitude for
structured two-person exercises. On the other hand, most modern students seem to need
the structure to make progress even though most have trouble transcending it. Pay attention
to the following points when practising Hammer Hands:
In keeping with the often encountered tradition in the Chinese internal arts, this form
is not learned solo rst and then practised with a partneryou can only do it with an
instructor or a peer. This means that you must have basic skills at the solo and interac-
tive methods to be able to retain any of it between practice sessions. It is an indication
of your level of development as to how well you remember the part of the form you
know from class to class.
Train slowly at rst with light touch contact; it may be many months before you can
use more speed and power safely.
BASIC MARTIAL TRAINING 69

Many of the better defensive methods will only work easily when you learn to move
away from the incoming force only as much as necessary, rather than running away
from it.
Whenever your feet are together, you should look double-weighted but not be that way.
The combative idea is to try and deceive your opponent, so that he or she doesnt
know for sure which direction your next step will be, even though your sparring part-
ner should!
Most of what seem to be blocks are meant to be striking deections aimed at vital
points of the anatomyuse care when doing them.
Most of what seem to be pulling movements are really negative strikes, but be very
careful when training with a partner, as you can give them whiplash (in martial sense)
if he is stiff. Use care when doing them.
Most of the interactions can easily be divided into a defensive part and a counterof-
fensive partbut remember that the majority are really one action when done well or
explosively, if you dont have to worry about harming your partner.

FORM APPLICATIONS
I have mentioned how important it was to develop some concept of what each posture
means on a martial level, even if it is only a mental understanding. However, to learn any
on a meaningful martial level, you will have to isolate and practise individual techniques
many times with a variety of training partners, and at a variety of intensities as your under-
standing and skills develop.
Such interaction, even when done slowly and carefully, complicates and changes your feel
for the mechanics of each posture. Now you really begin to learn where your hands and
feet should be at any one time, how to get them there using bagua principles, and how to
relax under pressure.
In the long run, any martial skill you develop will result from internalising the principles
and a few techniques, as opposed to learning many applications on a supercial level. This
small arsenal can eventually become internal (or instinctive, or subconscious, or condi-
tioned reexcall it what you like).
One way to do this is to select a few postures from the solo form(s) that you do particularly
well or like the most, and practise them on your own and with a partner. Try to pick meth-
ods that cover attacks from the most common angles and from both the right and left sides.
If you can eventually make them work while being attacked with some speed and power
then youre on the right track.
Remember that there is really no one interpretation of each method (although some ex-
perts would, no doubt, argue with this). I believe that each posture has one or more inter-
pretations as a defence against either being struck or grabbed; however, each will also have
countless variations depending on the skills and strengths of the practitioner, as well as the
angle and complexity of attack.
70 CHAPTER FOUR

Learning How to Strike with the Palms

One of the problems with learning the basic martial usage of the various palm shapes is the
natural tendency to conne your practising to striking the air while doing forms, or prac-
tising individual methods by yourself, or with little or no contact on a training partner.
Unfortunately, it is impossible, not just difcult, to learn how to efciently and safely strike
with the open hands, if you dont practise making contact with a target of some kind
whether that target is a focus mitt, a padded shield, a heavy bag, or makiwara, or a training
partner wearing body armour so that he or she can be safely struck. In fact all of these also
create a natural progression in learning how to use greater and greater amounts of power in
your palm strikes while also maintaining the integrity of the various methods themselves.
It is useful to think of palm strikes as falling into three categories: blunt impact, percussive
and penetrating.
The rst is a strike with the heel of the palm driven with the weight of the body. When
done properly, this causes great movement in the heavy bag and makes a dull noise on
impact.
The second, with the ngers and edges of the hand forming a hollow in the palm, is
driven more with the use of the waist, as well as a subtle shifting of weight, and makes
a louder, sharper popping sound on impact, and the heavy bag tends to shudder
rather than swing.
The third method begins like the second, but then the palm thrusts forward once the
edge of the hand and ngers make contact. It has a distinctive sound as well, and
makes the bag shudder in a different way than the second method.
All three methods are worthwhile from a martial perspective, and the third is the hardest to
generate, as doing it successfully implies that you are able to do the second method well in
the rst place. When done on a focus mitt, you will know, you are getting somewhere when
the impact of the last two seems to penetrate the padding even though you are not wind-
ing up from a great distance to generate momentum. As with all such training methods, it
is best to learn and practise them under the supervision of someone who can actually do
them with some skill and grace.
A traditional way of practising striking was to practise on a tree trunk, padded or otherwise,
or on a heavy pole that had been sunk into the earth for that purpose. There was also a
supposedly advanced way of practising, in which the bagua student navigated around and
through a pattern of such posts (often called Nine Palace Training) while practising a prear-
ranged or spontaneous pattern of strikes on the hard resilience of the posts.
Erle also teaches and has videos on the use of what he calls the bagua wooden man, al-
though making the requisite shape for his wooden man would not be easy unless you are a
skilled woodworker. Still, the methods he teaches for use on this apparatus can be adapted
for use on a wing-chun wooden man, or done while circling a heavy bag. I recommend the
videos if you are interested in training how to strike, and must do so largely on your own.
As with any aspect of learning to apply your martial skills in a potentially effective manner
from a self-defence point of view, you cannot ignore the necessity of learning how to do
BASIC MARTIAL TRAINING 71

your strikes on a target that resistsin some waythe impact. From a mechanical point
of view alone, it can take some pain and bruising to learn how to strike with an open hand
without bruising your own bones or straining your wrists and elbowseven when doing it
on a target that doesnt ght back, except passively.
It is also important to remember, how hard and how well you can hit, ultimately depends
on how well you can reposition your body in relation to the opponent just before striking
them. This use of timing and distancing is very difcult to learn, and tends to take the lon-
gest to learn unless you are born with considerable aptitude for such martial attributes. Let
me put it simply, you may be able to strike like a battering ram or with the force of a whip,
but if you cant get within the correct range to do so without being blown out of the water
by the other fellow, then your palm striking ability wont do you much good.
In other words, striking properly is one factor among many that have to be trained and fall
into place before you can be as effective a martial artist as your potential allows.

Uprooting Exercises
This exercise begins with two partners facing each other at arms length while standing in
a moderate Horse Stance (feet shoulder width apart and, in the beginning, each person is
double-weighted). The idea is to push, pull, or lure the other person into being obliged to
move their feet without the doer moving their feet. Using this stance limits how much
you can cheat by using your leg muscles to compensate for a lack of use of the waist and
hips to control the knees, or for failing to shift from side to side properly to help your upper
body efforts.
Uprooting should be approached as a game in which you try to help each other to fall over
or move the feet. The idea is not to force the person to move, but to guide them into such a
position that they would move their feet or topple over. Ideally, both partners should be of
the same sex, height, and weight until some real yielding and redirecting skills are formed.
It is also useful to have one partner do all of the attacking while the other can only redirect
the incoming force and not counter-attack. Then they can switch roles for an equal amount
of time.
It is also useful to practise uprooting while using a short stick. Rattan escrima batons make
good sticks for this exercise. They are the correct length and light enough so that you dont
have to worry as much about accidental contact.
Practising this way, the idea is to get possession of the stick while ideally making the other
person lose their balance and move his or her feet at the same time. As long as you move
relatively slowly, it is good practice to try to use the stick as a lever in locking out your
partners arms if you can do this safely. Practising with a stick is a quick way to learn how
counterproductive it can be to not be able to switch grips quickly and smoothly.

Joining Arms
This can be the most basic way of learning to apply bagua type martial methods, as well as
ultimately the most advanced method; however, both partners must have considerable skill
to avoid injuring each other while still practising in a meaningful manner. I think of the
72 CHAPTER FOUR

Conditioning Set and Hammer Hands as being two initial rungs up the ladder to under-
stand circling your partner while joining arms.
In the beginning, you only use inside and outside changes, as this minimises the chance of
injury to anything except the wrists and forearms (N.B. Remember that you must never
strike offensively or defensively with the wrists as you will only injure yourself or your part-
ner). Eventually, you will cross the circle to attack/defend. In the beginning, take turns so
that one person always has the attacking role for a prearranged amount of time. Eventually,
either person can attack at will.
Doing this means using what I call the Moving Through Step, which literally takes you
through your partners attack into and through the centre of the circle, to end up on the
other side. In solo practice, some styles use this as their primary or alternative means of
changing direction while walking the circle.
In Joining Arms practice (sometimes called rou-shu, or soft hands, or Bagua Push Hands),
this is the best, though riskiest, way of attacking the other person, as opposed to staying a
safe distance away on the circumference.
Whatever footwork method you use, eventually you can also use kicks to attack and defend.
In this regard, use care when striking the vulnerable parts of the legs to defend. Let the leg
move with the impact if you are struck. Dont resist the impact, go with it. If there is one
secret to doing this exercise, it is to keep moving and to attack when it is time to attack, and
not get too close unless you are doing so. In other wordstiming and distance apprecia-
tion.

CONCLUSION
As with all training, it is important to practise with a variety of partners: tall people can
learn to use the reach of their long arms even more effectively; short people can learn to
use a low centre of gravity to get inside a taller persons reach; heavy people can learn to
use their mass even more effectively; slim people can learn to use their exibility to even
greater effect, etc.
Fortunately, few of us will ever have to use our martial skills for anything more demanding
than friendly practice. In addition, no martial training can guarantee that you will be able to
successfully defend yourself against any aggressor. However, such training should give you a
ghting chance and, properly taught and practised, baguazhang is an insurance policy that
also pays the dividends of physical and emotional good health.
Finally, I would like to quote from John Bracys excellent book on bagua, as his advice is
pertinent to this chapter and to the next: The ultimate bagua, like any internal martial art,
involves employing subtle pressures and leverages to subdue an opponent. It is far easier to
to use obvious or brute force to beat an opponent, but it is is difcult to subdue him with
subtlety. What is meant by subtlety? It is the art of using the slightest touch, redirecting
and turning it back against the opponent who originated the force. Sometimes neutralis-
ing, sometimes leading aside, it involves matching the ne variations of pressures of the
opponent with near-imperceptible neutralisation and redirection. However, subtlety can be
mastered by only the most dedicated and persistent students of the art. It involves rened
BASIC MARTIAL TRAINING 73

skills of becoming sensitive, staying calm under pressure and direction the situation by the
power of ones will. Thus the higher level requires study of the mind and the nervous sys-
tem. This is the superior mans way to know and ultimately defeat an opponent.
Chapter Five
Beyond the Martial Basics

Lets assume that you have become a somewhat seasoned practitioner, in which case you
might be able to use your bagua skills in class against one of your peers or against an un-
skilled attacker on the street. However, being able to defend yourself against a skilful and
aggressive opponentwhether or not he has a size advantageis a different matter.
And, while you can certainly enjoy and benet from your training on many levels without
being able to defend yourself against such an opponent, it is also important to remember
that bagua started out as an effective combative artand not as qigong for health. In other
words, we are likely to get the most from our training on all levels if we stay true to the roots
of the discipline.
I dont want to sound pessimistic, but the longer I train the more I realise that it is very dif-
cult to train safely and easily in a manner that can bring effective self-defence skills. Beware
of teachers who say or imply that their bagua style has the secrets of combat that can be
learned in a few easy lessons.
The secret to really learning to apply your bagua in a self-defence situation lies in incorpo-
rating some hard to nd traditional training methods in your practice. Such secrets are to
be found on your body as beads of sweat, in your heart as the courage and will to persevere
in your efforts, and in your brain as you try to understand the theoretical underpinnings of
bagua as a combative system.
Of course, another secret lies in nding a teacher these days who can really apply any or
all of the traditional training methods in anything like a realistic combative manner. It also
follows that, having found this role model, you train under his supervision until you can
copy what he has taught and demonstrated easily, and then spend further years perfecting
the various skills and attributes with a variety of partners and on your own.
All this can lead to an eventual understanding that comes as much from years of experience
as it does from intellectual knowledge or solo form practice. We will call the nal product
maturity. And, if there are any simple steps to developing this potential to defend yourself
in a bagua-like manner, they lie in mastering the following aspects of your training and
BEYOND THE MARTIAL BASICS 75

learning how they interact together. Baguazhang is very much the sum of its individual
parts.

ADVANCED MARTIAL TRAINING

Returning to the subject of advanced martial training, it is not too much of a stretch to
describe qigong as representing wuji, which gives birth to the basic martial practices of taiji,
and that it, in turn, leads to the advanced concepts that make up the 10,000 things.

HEN and HA Sounds

Supercially, HEN is the gentle, rather drawn out sound you make when inhaling through
your nose to activate (I prefer that term to inate, which implies that you are too much
like a rubber ball) the abdomen and tan-tien. For self-healing purposes, the resulting sound
should be relatively quiet, slow and evenlike the breath itself. In normal respiration, the
diaphragm goes down and causes the lower abdomen to swell during inhalation.
For martial purposes, the HA sound escapes through your mouth and is sharp, sudden, and
triggers an explosive expiration while the abdominal area expands suddenly. There are sev-
eral reasons for using the HA sound. It loosens and focuses the abdominal area (muscles and
connective tissue) to provide stability and aid in the absorption of blows to the torso. It can
increase the power and speed of your strikes signicantly, and the sound itself has shock
value against your opponentoften even if he or she is half-expecting you to yell.
The use of breathing to increase your focus is nothing newask any weight lifter. Using a
vocalisation to increase your striking power is nothing new eitherask professional tennis
players. However, most modern martial artists no longer are exposed to such concepts or,
if they are, do not take it seriously, so they only make a perfunctory use of sound to ac-
company techniques.
Real martial sound has to slightly lead the physical expression of the HA, not just accom-
pany it. If you make the sound before or after the martial action, you have lost much of its
ability to focus your muscles and weight in support of the martial action. Traditionally, the
voice, like the eyes, acts as a mediator between your intention (Yi) and the Qi, to lead the
hands to the target.
When rst exposed to this aspect of training, I found it very difcult to get used to the con-
cept of making noise as part of my martial methods. In general, women and men both tend
to resist really letting go of their fear of being noisy in a group setting. The initial strangled
squeaks and grunts tend to provoke laughter more than anything else in a training room.
However, with a little practice, eventually the letting go process will include being able to
HA from the very centre of the tan-tien. The difference it makes to the speed and power
of your movement can be quite spectacular. Like any other aspect of your training, you
will only be able to understand the martial usage of this by practising under competent
supervision.
While learning this skill, you should practise with some volume, but eventually the sounds
can be as effective without being loud (or even audible) unless you choose to use volume
76 CHAPTER FIVE

to provide an element of startle to your tactics. Make sure that the shouts are short and
sharp, and come from the lower torso and the tan-tien rather than from the upper chest or
throat. In the beginning dont do too many at one time, as your throat may get hoarse if
you overdo the volume of the shouting and dont get it right.
Perhaps, the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu was thinking partially of this kind of training
when he wrote in his famous philosophical treatise Tao Te-Ching that a baby can scream all
day without getting hoarse because it breathes naturally and, by implication, without ten-
sion. Anyone who has been around infants and toddlers will know the truth of this.

Reverse Breathing
Ive already touched on this in the previous topic. However, this type of breathing is essen-
tial to learning contact martial stills and so deserves further elaboration. In natural breath-
ing, the traditional theory states that your internal energy goes up the back during the
inhalation and down the front during the exhalation, while during a reverse breath it goes
up the back on the exhalation and down the front on the inhalation.
Of course, this process also, even from a traditional point of view, has much to do with vi-
sualisation, and the actual physical difference in the way that the Qi circulates may well be
purely in the mind. It is also true that some qigong teachers tell their students that women
will naturally use reverse breathing all the time as it is natural to their gender or that breath-
ing is not all that important.
As to reverse breathing, by using the mind, the physical sense of fullness in the tan-tien area
can be transmitted down to the legs, hence contributing to rmer stances and more power-
ful use of the feet and legs. Thus, a well trained bagua practitioner feels as if the upper part
of his or her body is uid and relatively light, while his legs are heavy and rmly rooted to
the oor without being rigid. By the way, being rooted does not mean that you are planted
in the oor; a competent practitioner can maintain a sense of root while moving freely.
Lets be pragmatic and use the analogy of pushing a car: if you dont breathe properly
while exerting physical effort (some teachers refer to this as having insufcient pneumatic
pressure in the core muscles of the torsoparticularly in the abdominal area, as well as
where the psoas muscles connect with the lower back), this results in having insufcient
muscle power to do the work at hand.
While using this idea when striking someone or being struck yourself, it is also essential to
learn how to use this type of breath automatically, as it can save you from having the wind
knocked out of you if you are hit with any power in some parts of the front of the torso.
(N.B. It is only on TV and in the movies that the good guy doesnt get hit, or effortlessly
shrugs off the effects of repeated blows.)
If you are exhaling and contracting the abdominal area while ghting, you are in for trou-
ble if punched well. The goal is to have air in you at point of impact and your torso not
in a contracting phase. Of course, this is complicated because your torsoexcept for the
point of contactmust remain relatively relaxed to avoid causing your structure to topple
or affect your balance, which can have serious consequences in a ght.
BEYOND THE MARTIAL BASICS 77

Jing
Reading any of the taiji, bagua, and hsing-i texts that have been translated into English
in recent years will reveal a bewildering number of martial jings that apparently have to
be understood by the internal arts practitioner. The word itself can be confusing, as the
meaning can vary depending on how you pronounce it or the context in which it is used.
This word can mean sperm, or the vital life force contained in hormones, or a skilful
physical application of the body and mind.
It is also essential to remember that in the older texts the author meant his words to be
read only by his family members or senior students and perhaps by their eventual senior
students. These texts were not designed to be instructions for beginners, and such a teacher
would not have imaginedor desiredthat his words would reach a modern Western
audience.
Consequently, when the average modern student reviews these lengthy lists of jings, it is im-
portant to consider that these were notes for experienced students who already knew how to
apply all or most of these skills in a martial context. Those readers also understood how the
various jings interacted and supported each other from practical combative experience.
I think it makes better sense for the average modern practitioner to stop obsessing about
learning dozens of separate jings and only distinguish a few key ones. In practice, it is im-
possible to do many of the described jings in isolation. Remember that an opponent who is
charging you swinging wildly and powerfully, or launching a surprise attack, is not going to
give you much time or space to react with any of these specic jings!
Martially, these interrelated skills must be so automatic that they are done by your body and
mind in the correct sequence, and as the martial situation demands. You can not think or
plan your way out of a real combative situation, you can only react. The few real internal
martial experts I have met seem to focus more on teaching their students the basics and
encouraging them to understand the martial truth behind seizing the moment to gain the
advantage.
The development of these essential energies requires competent hands-on instruction as
well as good training partners with whom you practise in a controlled manner on a regular
basis.

Ting Jing
Ting (listening) jing is the most basic of the necessary skills and one of the most elusive
martially. Younger, tter students tend to substitute speed and power as soon as they feel
threatened, while older, more intellectual ones tend to assume that being able to go through
the motions of circling their hands and bodies in a connected manner with a partner is
somehow enough to stop a real punch, rather than being just a basic choreography. In the
long run, actual physical contact becomes less and less essential, but this is an elusive skill
that comes, if at all, after many years of practice.
Remember that listening requires you to be able to survive the initial attack and successfully
make contact with the opponent rather than being overwhelmed by that contact. What is
78 CHAPTER FIVE

comparatively easy to do in a formal exercise in class is much harder to achieve when some-
one is actually moving in with a real attack.

Dong Jing
Dong (understanding) jing is also easy enough to discuss and much harder to practise, as
you need the ability to stick and listen with some clarity to begin to realise how hard it is to
understand another persons balance and intention through physical contact.
One of the relevant sayings in the taiji classics is I know my opponent, but he does not
know me. This certainly applies to bagua as well. In other words, once two opponents
touch, the understanding one has the skill and experience to listen and interpret whether
a loss of balance or a physical technique is a mistake on the other persons part or a feint to
lure them into compromising their tactical position.

Hua Jing
Hua (neutralising) jing means being able to stick, listen, understand, and then deect or
neutralise a variety of attacks without using excessive tension or muscle in either your arms
or your body while still staying within the correct ghting distance and being able to keep
from being struck, thrown, or controlled while maintaining your own balance, space, and
a calm mind.
I suppose, in Western martial arts terms this jing relates to the high-level applications of
parrying and deecting force rather than resisting or running away from it. By the way,
pragmatically, resisting force is certainly better than running awaythe reason we have
such a variety of hard styles that can work effectively against an opponent with lesser or
similar skills. On the other hand, running away from an incoming force does not work in
close quartersthat is why the effective internal styles do not pull away from it. Instead,
they avoid or deect it at the last moment.

Fa-jing
Fa (explosive or attacking) jing is difcult to learn, especially when you try to copy
the skills and body mechanics of the few real experts who are still around. It is not just
punching suddenly or with a lot of power and speed, although a fa-jing strike, when done
by someone like Erle Montaigue, Alan Weiss, or Tim Cartmell, has to be seen or felt to be
believed. Not surprisingly, it comes at the end of my list of essential jings, as being able
to fa is useless without the ability to do the other jings I just listed. It also warrants more
explanation than the previous three.
Those of you new to bagua may wonder what this mysterious skill actually looks like. One
way to dene it is to say that fa-jing is a sudden expression of whole body energy focussed
through a part of the body into a precise target area. In bagua this is usually transmitted
physically through the palm; however, a real expert can express it with their elbows and
shoulders, hips and buttocks, through a head-butt, or with their legs. Again, it is important
to remember that striking in this way is an application of energy rather than one specic
technique although each style or teacher will usually have their preferences for how fa-jing
is done and which martial tools are used.
BEYOND THE MARTIAL BASICS 79

Unfortunately, few experts, much less their students, can strike without winding up and
still generate impact over the short distances that hand-to-hand combat occupies. In other
words, real fa-jing feels short, sharp, powerful, and disorienting to the recipient. By con-
trast, the one who delivers it appears relaxed, balanced, and calm before, during, and after
the delivery of that strike. Real fa-jing skills also involve the use of the mind, the eyes, and
the breath (i.e., reverse breathing) in specic ways. The role of ones Qi is also vital, but that
is beyond the scope of this handbook.
Another way to look at fa-jing is to compare it to an external-style strike which in most such
styles is delivered with a lot of muscular tension, with the power coming from the shoulders
or turning the hips while in a solid stance. The body is more rigid and segmented than in
an internal strike. By contrast, fa-jing involves more relaxed power, a sinking of the weight,
storing and releasing of energy, shifting of weight, turning and twisting the waist, as well as
using the ground connection. The body appears loose and alive to the casual observer.
See how easy it sounds!
In the end, learning to do this should be thought of as an aspect of your martial training
and your solo practice. It shouldnt become an obsession. If you really want the good oil,
invest in one of Erles videos that are devoted to developing this kind of striking ability to
get the details that lay the foundation of personal skill. By the way, it is hard to believe until
you start experiencing it yourself, but it is actually much harder to control the expression of
your fa-jing than it is to develop the ability to generate it. However, doing so is essential if
you are to train safely and effectively with your fellow students.
Even assuming you can develop this elusive power, note that many internal experts say such
training is dangerous, and one can overdo it even knowing how to execute such strikes ef-
fortlessly. Some internal martial practitioners and teachers (Liang Shou Yu and Tim Cart-
mell are two I have heard say the same thing) suggest that too much fa-jing practice is bad
for the health, and there is no need to routinely practise such tactics in solo forms as long as
you do it in moderation while hitting a heavy bag or mitt that can absorb the impact.
Even Erle Montaigue, who is extremely talented at what is sometimes called short power, has
said that your forms eventually should only have a hint of power when playing them. Of
course, this supposes that one has learned how to do fa-jing properly in the rst place.
I tell my students to focus on precision and timing, to learn the basic skills solo with only
a moderate amount of speed, and then practise them full-pace on a striking mitt or heavy
bag. Only when there is some skill in both contexts should they advance to practising tech-
niques with each other. This is particularly important when two people of different weights
and heights are practising together. Again, as I say to them, when you learn a martial art
that might work combatively, there has to be the risk while training, but most injuries are ac-
tually caused by one student not paying attention to what they are doing or going too fast.
As in any aspect of efcient training, learning fa-jing is as simple as having a competent
instructor for a role model who can actually do the strike, as opposed to telling you how
marvelously his or her teacher did it. Having found such a role model, you have to develop
the necessary physical skills (i.e., a healthy, supple body, proper body mechanics and condi-
tioning, elasticity of the tendons and muscles). All this takes time, patience, and more than
a little effort on your long road to making your skills look effortless to the casual observer.
80 CHAPTER FIVE

Iron Shirt and Taking a Punch

Many hard styles teach to exhale while striking, and it is often taught in the internal arts
in the context of reverse breathing; but others teach the opposite: you ll the form with
inhalation as it opens and expands. Of course, with time and training, you dont think con-
sciously about breathing, and the end result seems to be that the torso learns to breath like
an accordion, or old style furnace bellows as it opens and closes, folds and unfolds, and that
it can do what is needed automatically when struck.
As with many relevant advanced skills, it tends to be difcult to do one thing without having
some skill at those other things that provide a foundation for each other. In this way, unless
you have mastered natural and reverse breathing, it is difcult to do HEN/HA and fa-jing. If
you havent started to understand the latter method of breathing, then training in getting
hit is either a painful failure, or you learn to take a strike simply by tensing the abdominal
muscles.
Like so many other aspects of training, learning to be hit is a complex process which is
difcult to master unless your instructor is capable of doing and transmitting the feel of it.
Beware of teachers who have you train on each other and refuse to take a blow themselves.
They may understand the theory but are using you as the laboratory rats without being
honest about it!
To my mind, it is almost criminal to teach modern beginners with no martial experience
that they can put all of their trust in making a golden bell cover for the torso out of Weiqi,
or not having to learn how to defend themselves because they can learn to project Qi at an
attacker. In some cases, the instructor actually begins to believe that they have some mysti-
cal ability because the techniques seem to work so well on their students or co-operative
peers.
On a traditional martial level, those sifu who told the young Chinese patriot boxers at the
turn of the last century during the Boxer Rebellion that their paper charms and esoteric
qigong practices would stop the bullets of the foreign soldiers were probably not trying to
mislead their followers. Most of them could have sincerely believed in what they were say-
ing or had experienced the ability of the mind to minimise injury and stop the pain and
bleeding from minor wounds. Faith in this case was the cause of death and injury.
However, with a little effort you can learn to stop a strike to the front of the torsoeven if
you cannot stop bullets! As I wrote earlier, taking a punch is not simply a question of tens-
ing up to make a wall out of your muscles in the torso. This can stop some of the pain and
impact of a good punch, but it will disturb your balance and leave you open to a follow-up
technique.
Relaxing the torso completely also doesnt work. In fact, that is the least productive route
martially. Even when wearing a chest protector, a good punch (whether internal or external)
hurts like hell and destroys your balance if you try to be totally soft when it hits. The answer
lies in not too much, not too little muscle, learning to breath and relax properly, and more
than a little faith.
For beginners in this kind of training, receiving punches must become a conditioned re-
sponse, in which the tissue being hit tenses momentarily on impact and then relaxes once
BEYOND THE MARTIAL BASICS 81

the power is removed. Learning to do this is difcult, but not impossible, and not just a
question of hypnotising yourself so that you ignore the pain. By the way, traditionalists
might say you can learn Iron Shirt that can protect the face and head; but having seen so
many martial artists learn to break blocks of cement and slabs of wood with their forehead
I wonder if that is true. In simple terms, getting used to being hit in the face is a matter of
practice and correct alignment of the neck and chin, as well as keeping your mouth closed
properly.
Competent Western boxers learn to do this the hard way as a by-product of their training.
A fortunate few learn to do it internally by accident or because of some natural aptitude.
These are the boxers whom you see in the ring who seem totally unaffected by the strongest
blows to the body. Even a mediocre Western boxer who bruises and staggers as a result of
body blows can absorb an amazing amount of physical punishment to the torso, and does
so for a number of years.
There are lots of ex-boxers around, and you rarely hear of them dying or becoming inva-
lids because of internal injuries to the torso. It is the blows to the head that are problematic
and usually cause long-term disabilities and early deaths. The magnicent ex-boxer Mo-
hammed Ali is a sad example of such brain damage in his later years.
Despite this, the easiest way to learn effective Iron Shirt in modern terms is to take up West-
ern boxing on an amateur level, as the headgear will minimise the chances of long-term
brain damage. Any good boxer learns to take pain and impact without getting internal
injuries. It is also true that Western boxing, whether at an amateur or a professional level, is
only suitable for those who are relatively young and t.
A traditionalist would argue that it is also important to circulate and pack the Qi into the
area being struck. Learning to do the latter involves learning and practising Iron Shirt
Qigong, many styles of which have existed over the centuries. A few are still practised in
some hard and soft styles. It is also only fair to say that many modern teachers have said that
learning to take a punch will come naturally with proper form and qigong training. This
may be true for those with much aptitude, but I doubt that the average student has much
hope of learning to take a punch of any kind to the torso without training specically to
learn such skills.
On the other hand, I no longer think that it is essential to do specic Iron Shirt Qigong
methods to safely do the following methods; but I dont regret the time I spent practising
the traditional qigong sets that I did learn years ago.
However you approach being a human heavy bag, as I said before, understanding how
to do reverse abdominal breathing is essential. Similarly, doing regular standing qigong is
essential both for good health and having a normal amount of Weiqi, which is the protec-
tive aspect of internal energy. Pragmatically, it is impossible to know if the Weiqi really does
ow to the surface of the skin when you are struck, but if you can visualise this happen-
ingit helps!
I have also had some success in teaching the concept by using a more modern analogy:
imagine the push of the bare hand or the blow from a gloved st activates a force shield a la
Star Trek that only lasts for the moment the attacking hand is in contact with you, and that
82 CHAPTER FIVE

this energy shield absorbs the attackers force and uses it to charge your own shield genera-
tors. What is in excess of its requirements is automatically blown back or rebounded to
the attacker. I suppose that you can think of such imagery as being a modern interpretation
of the old saying Yi leads the Qi which leads the Li.
As in all aspects of internal training, you need competent instruction, faith in the method
you learn, the willingness and need to learn it, a good training partner you can trust, and
perseverance. As to the techniquebest learned from someone who can do itevery com-
petent method, traditional or otherwise, that I have experienced involves getting used to the
idea of being hit while maintaining your balance and relative relaxation. Oh, and you have
to put up with some pain and bruising in the beginning.
Last, but not least, knowing how to take a punch is relatively useless for self-defence if you
cannot carry the ght effectively to the opponent. While I teach a variety of exercises, in-
cluding some that involve receiving and returning a medicine ball, as well as real punches
to the torso with both a boxing gloved hand and a bare hand punch, this is well beyond
learning from a written description.
The Old Masters were correct in repeating endlessly that there is no substitute for personal
instruction. I will describe only one method that is relatively safe to experiment with, if you
are doing so without personal instruction. This method is the result of my own research
and experimentation although it is based on methods used by a variety of internal experts
that I have met or studied with over the years. This basic method uses the open hand and
relatively slow and gentle pushing only.
A pair of students stand with their feet shoulder width apart, one foot slightly in front of
the other while facing each other. They should be close enough to each other so that their
elbows remain comfortably bent even when the arms are extended. Their respective right
or left shoulders should be facing each other.
One person (the Sender) puts his open palm on the other persons lower torso and pushes
slowly and rmly into the other person (the Receiver), who also has his or her hand on
the Senders lower torso. The Sender should have a balanced approach to how much force
he or she uses: too much strengthand you will push the person over if you are bigger.
If you are smaller, your shoulders and arms will soon get tired, especially if your partner
resists skilfully.
The main rule is for the Sender to keep his or her balance, not use too much muscle, and
not move their feet while pushing the Receiver into moving his or her feet. Use a timer to
monitor short rounds and switch partner sides and partners frequently.
Remember to push smoothly and not to strike in any way (i.e., no sudden movements), and
to practise on both sides. If your right hand is on your partner, then your right foot should
be slightly forward, i.e., in a natural stance. Dont use a reverse stance, as it is easier to push
by using the legs in either a crude or subtle manner.
Take turns being the aggressor. The idea is for both people to move their arms and legs
as little as possible while receiving the push and try to help the other person fall over if their
push is stiffer than your returning. Oh, and there are many ways to cheat (e.g., leaning into
your partner, overbending the knees, and springing up with those joints instead of using
BEYOND THE MARTIAL BASICS 83

the waist and spine when returning the push, resisting the push, and then using your arm
to return the push with it) while doing this exercise, so it is important to be perceptive when
practising.
Dealing with a downward push is the easiest for anyone with rooting and relaxing skills;
dealing with a straight ahead energy is harder, and deecting or returning an upward push
is the hardest of all. If both partners have roughly the same level of skill and are roughly
the same size, the exercise can easily turn into a stalemate when neither would seem to be
doing much to a casual observer. When this happens, you need a different partner, or you
need to move onto the advanced versions of this exercise.
You have to listen with your palm both when receiving a push and while trying to return it
with the gentle ination of the abdomen, the twisting of the spine and a minimum of physi-
cal movement or effort. At rst, practise only with a partner who is roughly your height
and weight, or who has a great deal of control. Eventually, height, weight, and arm reach
become less of a deciding factor.

Reptile Brain and Animal Play

Again, this is another topic that really cannot be separated from the others in the sense that
accessing this mind state is one of the engines that make self-defence workable from a
combative point of view. Erle Montaigue calls the most primitive part of the brain stem
the reptile mind, to differentiate it from the more complex parts of the brain that grew
out of it. This is the home of the primitive reexes that served us so well for millions of
years when our ancestors were simpler beings with only a few concerns to worry aboutto
put it simply, Do I eat it, fear it, ght it, or mate with it?
Martial sports-oriented arts can give you a ghting edge against someone who is interested
in humiliating and dominating you, as in most ghts between young men, but is not as use-
ful against someone with a great deal of practical ghting experience and the real desire to
harm you. Assuming that you also have effective martial skill, the so-called reptile mind can
make your training more liable to succeed in a life and death situation.
Such training is much harder to control than to access in some ways. Some students nd it
difcult to do, but most who have any aptitude for the combative arts can learn to apply this
mind set (it is not the same thing as just using rage as an emotional fuel for your tactics) and,
I am sure, most of you have trained with students who were always needlessly reptilian
when sparring or training martial techniques.
Perhaps, it is similar to the infamous junk yard dogsome animals are born mean, some
are beaten and abused until they become mean, and some can turn it on and off as neces-
sary. Oh, and it is rarely necessary in modern life. Speaking of dogs, Erle Montaigue said it
well when he compared using reptile brain in martial training to being like the family pet.
You trust Rover, he is lovable and wont hurt the kids or bite the postman, but if a member
of the family is attacked, your 45 pound dog suddenly seems twice his size and will take on a
much larger opponent without hesitation. Oh yes, and when the ght is over, Rover almost
instantly goes back to being a petit doesnt remain in killer mode.
84 CHAPTER FIVE

Nobody normal wants to live with a guard dog that is always ready to bite, and your train-
ing shouldnt turn you into the equivalent, or you may nd yourself constantly in trouble
with the law, or alone in your personal relationships.
Leaving aside the issue of reptile mind, we see the same idea expressed in the concept of
using animals as models for your martial movement in most styles of hsing-i and bagua,
not to mention many of the Chinese hard styles. In fact, one of the central concepts of the
traditional Chinese martial disciplines is learning by observing and imitating animals.
This takes two basic approaches. The literalists try to imitate an animal as closely as pos-
sible. For example, a monkey stylist will make facial expressions, hooting sounds and ea-
scratching movements while doing the forms and applications, imitating how that animal
moves and ghts. By contrast, the abstractionists try to copy the spirit of the movement of
a particular animal, without trying to become the animal or imitate all of its mannerisms.
The internal approach can run the gamut of these two extremes. As far as I am concerned,
the self-defence aspect of animal play means that either you choose the animal that suits
your physique and concentrate on it for the training you mean to use in life and death situ-
ations, or the animal chooses you.
There are normally eight animals in the majority of bagua styles. In other internal and
external systems there can be ve, ten, or twelve animals. I favour the bear (or does the
bear favour me?) and have related most easily to the movements of that animal, as I have
experienced over the years in hsing-i and liu he ba fa as well.
I will describe him in some detail, as it will give you an idea of how the animals, both real
and mythical, are portrayed. The bear is a symbol of strength, power, and healing wisdom.
He is heavy and strong, and the practice of his methods stimulates and warms the kidneys
and body in winter. In ancient time, the Chinese shamans wore bear masks or heads and
imitated the stepping of the bear on its hind feet in ritual dances. This animal has several
sides to his nature in the Chinese martial arts. Being well balanced and stable in his postures
while slow and lumbering, he is capable of sudden bursts of speed. He is also playful and
renowned for his bravery, and is traditionally used in some regions of China as a charm
against thieves and burglars. Again, in parts of old China, the peasants believed that hu-
mans were descended from bears. (The Ainu in Japan still revere the bear as an ancestor.)
I have to admit, I would rather be the descendant of a grizzly than an ape!
If it is true that Taoism is a shamanic religion, then the use of totem animals is not an alien
concept to it, or to those aboriginal or European cultures which revered nature and sought
to transcend the boundaries between the spiritual and earthly dimensions. Without getting
too carried away by the links between Taoism and shamanism, I think becoming a bear
or a wolf in certain circumstances is not outside the realm of possibilityit shows up too
frequently, both in history and mythology (i.e., Viking berserkers and werewolves).
However, for all of our aws, humans have something that animals do not havecompas-
sion. If a zebra gets sick, the herd moves on leaving the ailing animal to the waiting lions
not from cruelty or self-interest but simply from obeying their own natures. Most humans
wouldnt, and that is one of the important issues that separates us, for good and bad, from
the natural world.
BEYOND THE MARTIAL BASICS 85

In any case, becoming like an animal is really only suitable in life and death situations, not
for dealing with annoying bullies or with your training partners. I only want to acknowledge
the possibility of becoming a bear if I have to ght a gang of bikersrather than being one
permanently, living alone except for mating season, and killing and eating my own cubs if
I get the chance!
I tell my senior students that reptile mind, eagle vision, and C back are the ip side of the
peace that comes through qigong. You have to be able to become (not imitate) an animal for
life and death struggles, but you wouldnt want to be an animal for daily life. Compassion
and the ability to choose how we act are what really separates us, for good and bad, from
the Garden of Eden.
Erles stuff is so effective, and more than a little scary, because he has mated natural move-
ment and effective subconscious ghting skills to the reptile/berserker mind. As to how we
trigger these attributes, a variety of hand postures, as well as different ways of holding the
spine and the body, can bring about the requisite physiological responsebut as to whether
or not this is an example of auto-suggestion, or accessing some primeval survival mecha-
nism, is up for discussion.
I think there is a lot to be said for understanding your favourite animal(s) in whatever art
you train in, as long as you dont confuse understanding the spirit and the movement with
becoming that animal for training or ghting purposes. The latter might give you added
ferocity or make your opponent think that you are crazy, but wouldnt be much help against
a skilful opponent who was able to remain calm, or also uses this kind of mental state.
It is also important to remember that no kind of mental conditioning can guarantee that
you will prevail against all opponentseven if you are well-conditioned and well-trained.
Even though I am not a fan of hunting for sport, I do like the spirit of that old hunters ad-
age: When hunting bears, some days you get the bear, some day the bear will get you!
Id like to nish with a cautionary note sounded long ago and in another context by the phi-
losopher, Friedrich Nietzsche (c.1844 1900). His words are certainly relevant to the subject
of animal energies and self-defence.
He who ghts with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And, if
you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

SELF-DEFENCE
Before discussing self-defence skills, it is important to have a working denition of internal
martial force. On a mundane level, martial force is an expression of the laws of physics:
strength exerted on an object or person, the ability to quickly and efciently put mass into
motion and focus its impact to your best advantage, and use leverage effectively. This also
implies that the practitioner will be able to use whole body strength, as opposed to localised
strength or crude tricks of leverage.
On a more esoteric level, internal force is also an application of Qi and of intention to
maximise the effectiveness of your methods while minimising your physical efforts. Erle
Montaigue has said, only partly tongue-in-cheek, that the internal arts are environmentally
86 CHAPTER FIVE

green because the idea is not to expend your own energy but to recycle it as you counter
an opponents tactics.
Doing this means that you use rebound energy to power your continuing strikes rather than
reloading after every strike as in a hard style counterlike an automatic rearm rather
than a revolver. Being green also has the implication that you are putting in and with-
drawing your own energy every time you make contactand not expending your energy in
a draining fashion. However, I am getting ahead of myself in discussing such issues.
As internal arts practitioners, and humans in general, are fond of categorising and nd an
almost magical signicance in certain numbers, you may nd it useful to divide the various
basic expressions of martial force into ve categories: No Force, Brute Force, Skilful Force,
Upright and Integrated Force, Internal Force.
No Force
The average practitioner of No Force has chosen to dene bagua training as a complete
lack of muscular force and effort. The movements of such a person seem mushy, without
focus, and barely succeed in keeping him or her upright, much less martially capable. In
this way not using force is interpreted as a total absence of force of any kind, as opposed to
being a specic kind of applied energy based on efcient body mechanics.
By the way, natural body mechanics are found in many people who dont do the internal
artsany talented athlete in any sport have discovered or been trained to use the most
efcient movement and posture to do the sport in which they excel. Similarly, many so-
called primitive people also express internal body mechanics in they way they stand and
movethe Masai of Africa and the natives of the Amazon forest express efcient posture
and movement in a way that seems alien to out-of-shape Westerners.
Those who advocate this No Force training usually emphasise circular form or standing
qigong as being the epitome of their art, and either dont practise any martial exercises, or
limit their practice to overly rubbery and co-operative sensitivity training.
Instructors of such approaches are usually the ones who advocate to do your form and it
will bring self-defence skills automatically, or teach their students to project Qi out of their
palms at attackers. They are also often overweight, not in a particularly good condition,
and actually seem to feel that this is somehow an indication they have got it martially. In
the relative safety of a training environment, it is easy for both teacher and students alike
to come to believe that a lack of force is somehow magical. You dont have to be very t to
learn how to ghtbut being t cannot hurt your efforts in that direction.

Brute Force
Brute Force depends on strength and some understanding of crude techniques or just ex-
perience at brawling. It is often laughed at by martial artists who conne their practice to
the co-operative atmosphere of the martial classroom, but their contempt is unwarranted,
as brawling regularly is one of the best ways to learn how to ght if that is all that interests
you. Of course, it wont do anything for your character or your health.
BEYOND THE MARTIAL BASICS 87

Although Brute Force works very effectively against smaller or unskilled opponents and is
often used by very large people or bullies, the ability to use it effectively fades with age, and
is of less use against someone who uses the following three categories of martial force, no
matter what their size and relative strength.
However, many a t modern sport martial artist has had the ,,,, knocked out of them
by an older pot-bellied brawler who wasnt impressed by the talk of black belts and was
used to getting hit because ghting was his idea of a recreational activity! If your opponent
shrugs off the impact of your best technique as he rushes in and gets his hands around your
neck, youd better have a back-up plan (or a heavy stick) readyor reevaluate how you train
if you survive.

Skilful Force
Skilful Force is an evolutionary step up from Brute Force and combines factors of body
mass, strength, and co-ordination with emotional maturity, martial experience, and supe-
rior technical skill. The training emphasis is usually on techniques and tactics, as opposed
to intuitive application of principles. In addition, speed, strength, and exibility of the arms
and legs tend to be the key components to developing this ability.
Depending on the training, Skilful Force is effective in defence against those using similar
tactics, or unskilled aggressors. In what I like to call the pseudo-internal arts, it is usually
used by those instructors who teach bagua, taiji, or qigong as a commercial sideline to their
hard kung-fu or Japanese Style.
However, in all fairness, many external stylists develop admirable levels of Skilful Force and
are strong and capable exponents of their respective arts. Such practitioners are often able
to retain their skills into middle age although they usually must moderate or curtail their
participation in sparring or competition in favour of teaching or form practice.

Upright and Integrated Force

This type of force is what I like to call semi-internal, and its practitioners have taken
their understanding of Skilful Force one step farther. They have learned or realised that an
upright, balanced posture enables them to use centrifugal force in a very effective manner,
particularly against straight line attacks.
As well as being upright, the practitioner of this kind of force has learned to mesh the
turning of the body and the shifting of weight so that most of his or her mass is behind
each technique. Their body mechanics tend to be much less stiff than the earlier categories,
smoother and more rounded.
Most of the instructors I have met who teach the martial aspects of their respective internal
arts never progress beyond this stage, as it becomes very effective against the techniques of
those using the other forces previously described. At this level, it is also very difcult to nd
better role models.
In addition, human nature being what it is, those using this category of force are also less
likely to be willing to give up their status as established experts to take their training a step
88 CHAPTER FIVE

further, by bending the knee and publicly admitting that someone can actually be farther
along the way than they are.

Internal Force
Internal Force is a difcult force to describe, much less acquire, and is rare even in the
Orient. Many instructors say or imply that their practice has this quality, but fewer have
actually advanced that far. The master practitioner who has developed such skill is able to
blend his or her movements with an attackers strikes and movements so well as to almost
seem to disappear momentarily. In addition, he or she can counter-attack with such speed
and precision that it is almost impossible for a bystander to perceive. Such a person spon-
taneously uses body mechanics so well that it seems effortless in comparison to the frenzied
speed and muscle of the attacker.
Such practitioners are few and far between in real life. For example, of the many internal
experts that I have met in the last decade, only a few are outstanding role models of what it
means to internalise ones martial practice. I am sure that there are others out there, outside
of my limited experience, but unfortunately the real experts of this calibre are rare.
There are key variables to look for when identifying an instructor or practitioner, who is
developing real internal quality to their force.
He is at least middle-aged and has a great deal of martial and life experience. Beware
of 35 year-old Grand Masters, as they are sometimes described on web sites and in
American martial arts magazines.
He is shaped rather like a tree trunk in the sense of not being top-heavy in muscle
development. Neither is he built like a weightlifter, nor is he seriously overweight.
He feels rubbery or springy when you touch him. When moving, he seems boneless
like a snake or a cat.
He seems to stand as still as a mountain, explodes without warning, can change from
one state to another with a spontaneity that is both breathtaking and frightening.
He is usually equally expressive in both solo form and combat skills, and practises
at least one of the healing aspects of the internal artsacupressure, qigong, herbal
therapy, massage, etc.
With the exception of No Force, each of the previous categories have some martial value.
They often form a natural progression of development for the maturing internal arts prac-
titioner. Many start up the ladder, but get stuck on a particular rung. Aside from having
competent instruction at key points along this ladder of life, the ingredients to a success-
ful climb are patience, perseverance and the ability to admit that you dont know it all and
never will, no matter how skilful you become.
As I said before, there is more to bagua and to life than learning how to ght, and there is
nothing wrong with conning your study of the martial side of the art to the basic martial
exercises. However, please dont assume that competence in these will somehow automati-
cally bring self-defence skills or the ability to generate Internal Force. Done properly, such
core exercises teach relaxation under pressure, as well as timing.
BEYOND THE MARTIAL BASICS 89

However, a strong committed attack of any kind will likely easily penetrate the skills of an
average practitioner if he or she is overly defensive and yields passively to someone who
doesnt obey the rules. Stiffness combined with lack of commitment is relatively easy to
deal with if you can relax even marginally more than your opponent. However, stiffness
combined with rage or skill is a different proposition, and one not usually encountered in
a classroom setting.
In addition, very few instructors attempt to apply the principles of their art to semi-realistic
ghting situations by having their students train, at least some of the time, against vigorous
or spontaneous attacks by students who are not being overly cooperative in how they attack.
In a ght success comes to those who blend offensive and defensive tactics, and dont just
hope to stumble upon a suitable tactic by being totally on the defensive.
The rst one or two effective techniques usually decide who is the victim and who is the vic-
tor; and, unlike the movies, where ghts go on for what seems like hours, real violence tends
to start and be over almost before you can analyse what is happening. Kicks are rarely used
unless as an element of surprise or to nish someone who has been knocked down.
If you are not used to such events, both psychologically and in terms of being hit, the rst
contact may injure or shock you enough to leave you open to subsequent blows. Similarly,
no one, regardless of their skill level, knows how he or she will react until they are faced
with real danger the rst time as opposed to sparring with an opponent in a friendly com-
petition or with a fellow student in the safety of training environment.
As part of what the Chinese rather delightfully call wild history, most students have read
or been told stories about the old master who passively allows himself to be beaten by a
gang of laughing rufans. When they leave, he gets up as if nothing had happened, while
over the following days the rufans are all incapacitated by injuries caused by the beating
they thought they were giving their victim.
Having had the experience of striking a modern-day expert or two with stiff force when I
was a relative beginner, only to have it rebound painfully into my limbs or push me over, I
will admit that there may well be something in such old tales. However, most of us are not
capable of such marvellous demonstrations of passive resistance.
It is easy to get carried away with a feeling of spiritual or tactical superiority when doing
an internal martial art like bagua, when you only ever practise in the safety of your school
with people who dont have much relevant martial experience, or who are not trying to hurt
you or make you look bad. Sadly, the good guys dont always win in real life, and moral
superiority is small consolation for a beating that leaves you or a loved one emotionally or
physically maimed.
If you want to maximise your self-defence potential, you have to practise accordingly. In
combat, relaxation means not panicing if struck or suddenly forced to ght, being able to
work in close contact with the attacker without being immediately grappled or thrown,
which implies staying physically balanced and using effective tactics immediately. Remem-
ber the advice of a Confederate General from the American Civil War days when asked
what his strategy was in battle: Git thar rst, with the most.
90 CHAPTER FIVE

Going Beyond the Basics

In self-defence the biggest obstacle to making the jump from the basic martial skills is learn-
ing how to make contact with the incoming force from an attacker. This always brings us
back to the issue (I know, I keep harping on this, but it is an important issue that often gets
glossed over, in North America at least) that most bagua practitioners in China in the old
days, when the art was still primarily about ghting, were experienced martial artists who
already understood the mechanics of timing and distance and were used to the thump-and-
bump of physical contact on a variety of levels when they rst were exposed to bagua.
For students such as these, sensitivity drills were designed to teach just that, and were not
designed to teach the fundamentals of ghting. Nowadays, of course, most students of
bagua have little or no relevant martial experience to bring to their sensitivity training, so
it is less useful unless they are taught the martial basics either beforehand or concurrently
with the sensitivity training. Speaking of useful old expressions hinting that the internal arts
were not originally a New Age practice, two venerable ones in the Chinese martial arts are
my favourites: Not to hit is to cheat the student. and You must eat bitter to be full. Of
course, any such saying is best viewed as a starting point for long-term study by those who
are serious in the training and have considerable experience. They are of much less value
for beginners and even intermediate level practitioners.
For example, most competent bagua styles have training methods developed to teach the
skills of connecting, neutralising or yielding to force, as you simultaneously counter-attack.
Such drills are designed to make training relatively safe and are not necessarily a precursor
to free ghting. Most schools will have you sparring and free ghting rst, and the push
hands drills are taught later to bring the sensitivity of ghting skills up to higher levels.
Tim Cartmell, a modern teacher of the internal arts whom I greatly respect, wrote in 2003
on his websites discussion board: The theory is, it is a waste of time to learn to neutralise
incoming force, get an angle on an opponent and unbalance or uproot him if you have no
power or technique to close the deal with after.
Attempting to reduce the necessary factors to a manageable number, you could say that
there are ve essential self-defence skills.
Dominating the initial contact: When you touch the opponent with your arm or hand
while deecting and neutralising his attacking limb, you use that contact to control or rub
the limb so as to distract him (even momentarily), as well as, hopefully, to upset his balance.
This can also provide an opportunity to lock up one or more joints, strike with the other
hand, throw him, or trip.
Stealing the timing: When the opponent doesnt want to take the initiative, you must ei-
ther feint an attack or extend a hand inviting the opponent to make contact with you. Once
this contact is made, you can use the bridge you have created to attack. This tactic can be
particularly useful against those who have mistaken the forest for the trees in that their mar-
tial training has conditioned them to stick at all cost, even when this is counterproductive.
Which leads us to the third point.
BEYOND THE MARTIAL BASICS 91

Breaking contact, if necessary: If the opponent has skill and successfully adheres to
your limb, you must break that contact by withdrawing the limb while counter-attacking, to
distract him from pressing his advantage or from reestablishing effective martial contact.
Sticking until it is not necessary: If your opponent tries to break the bridge you have
created, you must follow his actions to maintain contact with one hand and/or a part of
your body while you continue to attack, until it is no longer necessary to do so.
Working the open vs closed sides of the opponent: One of the toughest problems
in ghting someone with skill is that they will try to limit your options in the same way you
will try to limit theirs. One important aspect of this is that the safest way to defend against
their arms is to work the closed side (i.e., if he attacks with his right hand, you defend
with your left and move to his outer side). This is often easier for the smaller, lighter per-
son to do as a defensive action, but limits somewhat your targets for counter-attack, as the
aggressors torso is protected by his arm, as well as yours.
Conversely, working the open side implies that you defend against the aggressors right
hand with your left and stay in front of him. This makes it more difcult to avoid being
attacked by his left hand but also implies that you have better targets available to your
counterattack. In other words, his torso is relatively open. There are plenty of vulnerable
areas to attack when inside, but the problem is that this works both ways. When ghting on
the inside (and sometimes you have no choice) your opponent has just as much access and
opportunity to attack your vulnerable areas, as you have to attack his.
If you are behind or outside your opponents arms, the opposite does not hold true. You
have an opportunity to attack his vulnerable areas; he has no access to yours. In addition,
you have superior positional advantage to take the opponent down without much struggle,
as well as the option to escape if need be. In order to end a real ght you need to dominate
your opponent. If he or she is bigger, stronger, or skilled at ghting, it will often be very dif-
cult to do so in a face-to-face exchange.
Maximising Your Self-defence Skills
It makes sense to assume that the opponent is dangerous (stronger and technically sound),
and having superior positional advantage may be the only way we can win the encounter.
However, if you spend enough time studying internal arts and have the opportunities to
study with a variety of experts, it will soon become obvious that most of those teaching are
not teaching self-defence skills that would have any hope of working outside of the relative
safety of their classes.
By contrast, my main teachers both told me the same thing over the years, The methods
should give you basic self-defence skills in a few months or years, but rening those skills
will take a lifetime of ongoing effort. Over the decades, I have found this to be true, and
so have many of my students. Short-term skills can be rough, involve the risk of bruises (to
the ego and elsewhere!) and a substantial amount of sweatthe beginning of the forging
process, so to speak.
Long-term training (assuming competent instruction) polishes the experienced practitioner,
so that he or she moves with the ease, efciency and authority a beginner can only marvel
at. This doesnt mean the beginner can not learn to apply the same methods for combat
92 CHAPTER FIVE

purposes. This is one of the pleasures of bagua as a martial system which, as a by-product
to self-defence skill, brings better health and even emotional/spiritual benets. Most of us
are fortunate enough (or mature enough) to never need to develop such skills. However, it is
also a shame to learn skills you think might be useful, but would actually be counterproduc-
tive if you ever had to protect yourself or your loved ones from a serious attack.
What Do You Need to Bring to Such Training?
Some physical strength and health are essential to safely train in any martial method
that might work in a worst case scenario. Such training is not suitable for everyone,
especially those with serious health problems, or unused to regular physical activity.
Patience is a useful attribute, as internal style martial skills are not learned quickly,
especially if you dont train in them every day for three to ve years. I am reminded
of the delightful story of the hsing-i master in China, who was supposedly lecturing
his students on how important it was to study with a good heart, and that the training
was ultimately to teach the students how to avoid ghting. One student, reportedly,
impatiently asked, If we are supposed to learn to avoid violence, why practise ght-
ing at all? The masters answer was, If you dont want to learn properly, get out!
Most modern students dont want to learn so much as they want to feel they have all
the answers.
Willingness to invest in loss and learn from your mistakes, rather than get mad at
yourself or your training partner.
What Should You Look for in Your Training?
An understanding of balance and body mechanics that rely less on muscle mass and
strength and more on leverage, timing, sensitivity and efcient body mechanics (i.e.,
whole body usage).
For self-defence, it is essential to learn and practise a few methods that suit your body
type and physical attributes so that they become reexive, rather than practise many
things in an indifferent manner.
Experience at hitting actual targets with some power, as opposed to simply punching
the air. It is easy to be smug with the speed of your strikes while doing a fast form or
practising solo. It is a far different thing to learn how to hit without hurting your limbs,
as well as how to absorb or transmit the impact without bouncing off what you hit!
Some experience with close-quarters physical contact with your training partners.
This is the hardest to cultivate in an internal manner (good teachers are few and far
between), but even the crudest skill at taking a blow or being thrown will soon teach
you many valuable lessons about what relaxation and balance are really all about
in relation to self-defence. The lack of experience with any kind of body contact is
the main reason why most modern martial artists would have a rough time trying to
apply their skills against a real street ghter, or against someone really intent on hit-
ting them, as opposed to playing. One instructor even assured me with a hint of a
sneer that it was wrong to make any kind of contact with your partner while doing
applications, as you would not be training your Qi properly! Sadly, his attitude is not
BEYOND THE MARTIAL BASICS 93

unique, even though common sense should tell you that you have to have control in
your martial contact, but you also have to have contact! Conversely, this also explains
why most modern experts with any real self-defence skills usually have a background
in wrestling or throwing arts or have boxed (whether Western or Thai). They are used
to close-quarter combat and to having to react properly while under real pressure.
What Should You Avoid in Your Training?
An emphasis on sticking and yielding, as to make these essential skills easier to under-
stand and practise safely in a large group, they are often taught counterproductively
in self-defence sense.
Complex methods that rely on the compliance of an overly stiff partner to have any
success of application. I have met many supposed experts over the years who are
teach methods that have no hope of working in the real world, even though they may
seem to work in a classroom setting.
Any teacher who claims that you can learn to project Qi as your main technique for
self-defence skills. Common sense seems to go out the window if you judge by the
number of schools whose teachers make their students fall over, twitch and throw
themselves by a ick of masters ngers.
Anyone who tells you that you can learn an effective martial art without any initial
physical effort, a few bruises, and a lot of sweat along the way! In the long run, a
competent internal art relies less and less on crude strength and technique, and it is
possible to continue to train with benet when one is past his or her physical prime.
However, an internal art that has some claim to being a true combative art will never
be as effortless as it looks to the casual observer.

Defending Against Knives and Clubs

A famous man (no, whoops, that was me) once wrote in an article for a British police maga-
zine (Police Review, Vol.95, November 13, 1987) that the key to defending against a knife
was to remember your mothers good advice when she caught you playing with the kitchen
cutlery: Dont play with that, youll get cut! In fact, the hardest aspect of defending
against a knife is realising that you probably will get cut in some way, and you may have to
give up a piece of yourself to get the knife wielder.
I dont often go into the specics of defending against such weapons with my students
because it is relatively useless to learn knife or club defences until you already have consid-
erable physical skill in all the basics and have absorbed Erle Montaigues excellent advice,
or that of someone who really knows something about defending against such cutlery. It is
also important to remember that you have to learn how to handle these weapons offensively
with some ability to learn how to defend against them.
Incidentally, this holds true of unarmed techniques as well. You cant learn to defend prop-
erly if you have no idea of how to defend, and vice versa. You could call it another aspect
of Yin and Yang being balanced!
94 CHAPTER FIVE

To summarise Erles approach to knife defence (and I do recommend his videos on the top-
ic): evade (get out of the way), bump (strike the arm holding the knife in the joints, or where
the nerve endings come close to the surface, away from youto cause pain and, hopefully,
knock the weapon loose from the attackers grip), and attack vital points (eyes, throat).
The latter may seem harsh, but a cut to an artery can cause you to go into shock or bleed
to death in a very short period of time. The point of a knife is often so small and sharp
that only a relatively light amount of force is required for deep penetration that can lead to
severe infection and death.
In unarmed self-defence you might be able to accept a blow from the st to the gut in order
to strike a more vital area, but this cannot work with a knife, as even a small cut to an artery
can cause death in minutes from bleeding or shock. Similarly, an experienced knife ghter
will expect you to block or grab the hand holding the weapon, and many are prepared to
fold at the elbow, pull or twist the blade back to sever your ngers as you try to hold their
attacking arm, etc.
More important, most techniques in unarmed martial arts require great skill to have any
success of working, but the attackers knife hand will often move in very small circles and
erratically, as very little body force is necessary to inict deep cuts with a sharp knife, and
it takes little practice to be able to attack successfully with a knifeespecially compared to
how long it takes to learn how to defend against such attacks.
Without losing sight of the fact that any edged weapon can cause cuts to arteries that could
kill you in minutes by causing shock or blood loss, it is essential to remember in all aspects
of such training that the person holding the weaponnot the weapon itselfis your real
concern. Quite often the sudden appearance of a weapon will prove distracting to the point
where the attacker can kick or strike you with his free limbs and then use his weapon at his
leisure.
Being clubbed is similar to being attacked with a knife, although it is marginally easier to
defend against someone using a blunt impact weapon if you have any skill at all. A broken
arm can be survived if it means you take out the attacker, but a cut throat to cripple your
attacker is a very poor trade indeed! In addition, you may be able roll with the impact of
a blunt weapon if it is hitting a muscular portion of your body in order to counter-attack,
but it is still risky business.
As with any aspect of self-defence, you need to have excellent martial skills and practise
against the common ways of swinging and wielding a knife or club to have any hope of
being able to do so on the street.

Final Words on Self-defence

Since beginning to teach in 1985, and having also gotten married and stopped spending
my free time in bars, I am happy to say that I have not had to ght anyone. However, I had
some relevant experiences in my younger days, and in more recent years have manoeuvred
my way out of a couple of situations that could easily have become ugly if I had panicked
or overreacted. In addition, I have witnessed a number of street ghts, and this kind of real
BEYOND THE MARTIAL BASICS 95

violence tends to spring out of nowhere. Unfortunately, you cannot always avoid violence
by minding your own business.
There is a lot of truth to the statement: A teacher who doesnt have experience in real
world violence is next to worthless. Especially if that teacher claims to be teaching ght-
ing or self-defence methods that are guaranteed to work under all conditions, and against
any opponent. However, you can also argue that not having been in a serious ght since I
started to achieve some skill shows that I have achieved some maturity and the ability to
manoeuvre potentially bad situations into ones that were resolved without violence. Isnt
one of the worthiest goals of martial arts training to transcend the need to come to blows?
Getting the most out of bagua as a martial system relies on many training methods to
develop good basic combative skillsknowing how to close the distance between you and
the other, being able to neutralise and yield as you counter-attack, and having some idea
of how to deal with a variety of styles of attack: a puncher, a grabber, a thrower, or any
combination thereof.
At the risk of being repetitive and pedantic, I will state that it is not possible to learn
self-defence or combative skills that might work against a skilled or determined attacker
without controlled contact and some form of spontaneous unrehearsed attacks, albeit in a
controlled manner, with or without body armour.
Having this kind of training environment is difcult, as it requires one-on-one coaching or
very small groups, and a willingness by both the attacker and the defender to escalate the
violence only as much as each participant can manage at a given time in their develop-
ment. In other words, there has to be a spirit of cooperation, even though this kind of
training is not done cooperatively!
Finally, I would like to quote the words of Miyamoto Musashi, the famous mediaeval Japa-
nese swordsman, who learned the hard way by surviving dozens of ghts in which his
opponents were often killed. His Book of Five Rings (from The Martial Artists Book of
Five Rings, as translated by Stephen F. Kaufman, Charles E. Tuttle Publishers, 1995) is a
martial primer that is worth owning and rereading, as much of his advice is still relevant to
the study of any effective combative art: You cannot take a certain attitude and depend
on it entirely. There are too many variations in attacks from the enemy. What you think is
effective may in fact be ineffective because of the way in which the enemy is feeling at
that particular moment. Your attitude must be such that you can shift into any other mode
of combat without having to make a conscious decision. You must be exible and have no
particular liking for any particular set of techniques. If you do not develop this attitude,
what are you doing there in the rst place? Combat ghting is not done for fun. Even in
practice sessions you must have the attitude of going in for the kill.
Chapter Six
Controversial Issues

Many beginners come to a bagua class thinking that there is only one form of that discipline
instead of two main approachesWu-tang and Er-meias well as countless variations,
both good and bad, of each. In the same way, more experienced students may be surprised
to learn that there is as much difference of opinion about almost any bagua-related issue as
there are people talking about that subject!
One way to experience this is to visit any of internal arts internet discussion boards, al-
though the level of sophistication in the discussions is usually on par with that generated in
a redneck bar on Saturday night, or a schoolyard between adolescents.
In this chapter I would like to touch on some of the contentious topics that are frequently
raised when experienced practitioners get together to argue in a friendly, or not so friendly,
manner.

THOUGHTS ON LINEAGE
As I said before, the history of modern bagua really begins with only one teacher, Tung
Hai Chuan, and the few experienced martial artists who studied with him when he went
public in Beijing at the turn of the 20th century. The inheritors of the styles developed by
those students state or imply that their version is at least as good, if not better, than that of
those who have learned and taught the modern wu-shu bagua forms invented by the Sports
Committees of the various Chinese government-sponsored athletic colleges. I would imag-
ine that the staff of these modern facilities also feel that what they teach is equal or superior
to what is being taught by the traditionalists.
Then, of course, there are the countless kung-fu and karate masters who have learned
a little bagua and are happy to teach it as a sideline, without worrying too much about the
depth of their own understanding, much less what they are passing on to beginners. I have
seen websites and advertising where earnest young men in aikido or karate outts promise
to teach you bagua as it was originally created, and offer bagua weapons forms using the
sai and shinai to prove it! I have visited sites which promise you can learn the essence of the
CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES 97

art in seven days and another web page in which a young instructor wrote that the name
of our art came from the war cry BAGUA the founder used to shout in battle. I wish I was
making this all up.
A cynic might think that the art has changed a great deal since its origins in the mid-19th
century, and some of that change has been for the better (e.g., we understand the human
physiology much better than before, in terms of how to train safely and get the most out of
the human potential), and some for the worse (e.g., effective self-defense skills are replaced
by highly gymnastic crowd-pleasing movements as a way of using the forms for competi-
tion).
You should never assume that a teacher is less competent on any level because you have
never heard of them or their teachers, and vice versa. In the same way, a long and presti-
gious lineage cannot guarantee that a particular teacher will automatically be as great as
those who preceded him or her. Similarly, just because an organisation is large and has
a famous teacher as a gurehead will not guarantee competent instruction in any of the
member schools.
Sadly, modern bagua organisations are sometimes shams in the sense that they exist only
on paper, or the members have bought a certicate by sending in the required membership
fee or visiting a famous master for a week or two in China. There are always otherwise
reputable teachers in China who are not in the least bit shy in handing out certicates to
any foreigner who comes with enough money and an introduction from someone they
know overseas.
I dont think that there is any way around the necessity for change in even the best system
of forms and training methods. To remain a viable artand not just a museum pieceany
style of bagua must evolve to remain relevant to modern students. Otherwise, it becomes a
museum piece with relevance only to academics and those obsessed with the past.
I have been creative in small ways in my own teaching, as my skills have evolved in what I
practise and teach; although, I have not consciously changed the forms that I learned from
Erle Montague. In fact, too much change can also cause problems, and I do think that it is
important to leave a legacy for future generations that has some continuity with the past.
My only problem with creativity is when some teachers refuse to acknowledge that they
have been creative, and attribute their curriculum to mysterious Chinese gentlemen who
happened to live next door in Vanier, Ontario or in Twin Farts, Nebraska.
Leaving aside the tricky issue of deciphering lineage and deciding who has the real goods
from a technical and historical perspective, a master may come from a traditional school,
or modern one, or both. In this regard, a large part of the historical difference between
traditional and modern bagua is the relationship between the student and the teacher.
In traditional schools the master was very selective of his students. He usually had only a
few, and they were recommended by a close friend, family member, or other martial arts
master. The prospective student had to undergo the bashi ceremony of swearing allegiance
to his master. He then became an inner door disciple and was shown most of the training
secrets. The best among the students was then selected to be the next lineage holder after
the master passed away. He was shown all of the styles secret training techniques.
98 CHAPTER SIX

These disciples typically took care of all the masters needs and treated him like a father. All
fellow students were treated like brothers. It was often not an exaggeration to think of them
as being adopted members of an extended family. By contrast, in a modern or non-tradi-
tional setting, the teacher is willing to accept any student who walks in the door and is will-
ing to pay the required monthly fee. There is no implied student-teacher loyalty in either
direction, and the training is softened to meet the students needs and to retain students.
Having trained in variations of both styles of school, I cant help but feel that one approach
will appeal to those who crave authority and want to feel connected to something vener-
able, while the other to those who are more independent and value initiative and innova-
tion. Both approaches have their merit in empirical values. Both approaches are also easy
to overdothe traditionalists become obsessed with historical accuracy over practicality,
while the non-traditionalists can be too quick to throw out whatever doesnt appeal to them
and change forms and methods for all the wrong reasons.
In addition, it can be difcult to nd instructors who are better than you in ways that go
beyond the stylistic differences meaningless at an internal level. Conversely, many practitio-
ners and instructors take the attitude that unless they remain bound by whatever they have
learned from their instructor, it has no legitimacy. It is easy to be too humble. And failing to
learn from your own experiments and insights is as ridiculous as assuming that everything
you invent is gold!
To return to the original topic, I would suspect that the history of bagua is full of myths and
personal agendas. Finding the original method is highly unlikely; however, nding a good
teacher with access to one of the better inheritances and variations of this discipline is both
possible and crucial if you want to have some hope of developing even a pale reection of
the original art.
I just wish that innovative teachers would have the courage to come out and say, Yes, I in-
vented this, so what? Honesty isnt everything, and it can sometimes be used as a weapon,
but it is one of the few ethics that are essential for day-to-day integrity. Being a man has
gone out of fashion, but I tell my two sons that you cannot have that elusive manna without
maintaining honesty in your everyday life, both with yourself and with others. They look at
me like I am an old relic (I guess I am in some ways) when I harp on the subject.
It is important to remember that modern experts are often bringing aspects of their other
ghting arts to whatever they teach, so that the information is rarely purely from a bagua
perspective. And, this is certainly going with the experience and attitude of the founder of
this discipline, whose genius lay in his reputed ability to get experienced martial experts
from diverse styles to incorporate their strengthsbut not their weaknessesinto the ba-
gua he taught each of them.
In the end, martial lineage is important, but the ethics, individual abilities, and teaching
skills of the person you plan to learn bagua from are even more important than how skilful
his teacher was and who in the past had taught him.
CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES 99

IS BAGUA A HEALING ART OR A MARTIAL ART?

As with the previous discussion, there seem to be two major campsthose who believe that
bagua is really a Taoist form of moving meditation, and it can heal just about anything if
the practitioner has enough faith, and those who feel that it was developed as a martial art
and should be trained with that in mind.
Certainly, the reputation of the early masters was not built on healing people, but on defeat-
ing them. And it sounds as if some of their personalities were rather harsh as well, if half
of the stories are true. However, it is also important to remember that we shouldnt judge
them from a modern enlightened perspective, as they were living in a very different age
and society.
In any case, I have seen no evidence in almost fourteen years of practice and teaching
to contradict my impression that the health aspect of bagua is anything but a relatively
modern overlay on the art. After all, even the word Qigong only came into popular usage
in China in the early 1960s. On the other hand, it is quite possible that those who followed
Master Tung added traditional Chinese self-healing exercises and Taoist meditative knowl-
edge, gained elsewhere, to what they had learned from Tung Hai Chuan in an effort to
make the art more complete.
Realistically, I dont think we will ever know for sure. The older generation of teachers were
too secretive, and very little was put down in writing until the 1930s, when Sun Lu Tang
became the rst to write authoritatively about bagua and the other internal arts, and when
it was often of most use to those already in the know (martial short hand, so to speak).
In the long run, a good style of baguazhang will make you a better and healthier person.
However, it bears repeating that it will not bring signicant self-defence skills unless you
learn and practise that side of the art with a competent teacher for several years. You can-
not learn ghting by osmosis. Conversely, students who practise the healing part regularly
may nd that they learn the self-defence stuff more efciently than those who approach the
martial side of bagua without an inner peace of some kind and an understanding of the
basic concepts of moving meditatively.
Because of the mystical nonsense that has been added to baguazhang from a variety of
external sources, many students will assume that practising should make you a superhuman
of some kind and guarantee you dont get colds or suffer injuries. Perhaps, because of the
New Age veneer on many of the North American variations of bagua, there tends to be
an expectation in both students and teachers that regular practice will somehow eliminate
all physical ills and confer immunity to illness and general physical wear and tear. Unfortu-
nately, this is not the case. For example, knee damage or chronic inammation has ended
or limited the careers of many internal arts practitioners. In particular, circle walking is
often a killer on the knees if you dont get the walking just right, and sometimes even if you
do. Two of my best taiji students started studying bagua with me, but had to stop because
their knees were killing them after a few months. Once they stopped, things went back to
normal. The Slip Step seems to be the hardest to do safely. I have other beginners drop out
after a few weeks because they found that bagua in general was too hard on their backs and
shoulders as well.
100 CHAPTER SIX

It is important to practise regularly and moderately, and not neglect getting warmed up
and stretched (the two activities are not the same) before doing the more demanding forms.
There is also a certain amount of wear and tear to be expected from training, so all we can
hope is to avoid major injury.
There is a price for practising martial arts for years or decadesinjuries. There are many
days when everything aches in my middle-aged carcass, and I think to myself, Why am
I doing this? I have arthritis in both elbows from being a training partner for too many
students who didnt have the control that prevents needless damage, and my right hip is an
osteoarthritic mess for a variety of reasons, including having tried to do high kicks for years
and the stamping in some of the forms I have practised.
As you get older, it takes longer to recover from even minor injuries, and I now understand
why instructors traditionally preferred to not train with the beginner and intermediate
students. Sadly, those are exactly the students who need to feel the teachers skill and power
the most. As in many things, there are no easy answers.
The overall truth is probably that being relaxed and relatively calm can certainly improve
your emotional life, and these can positively affect your general healthbut common sense
should tell you that you remain mortal no matter how skilful you are at any aspect of ba-
guazhang. Practising martial arts can lead to a lot of unavoidable wear and tear.

WHAT LEADS: THE HANDS OR THE WAIST?

Some good bagua styles seem to advocate that the hands must lead the weight of the body,
while our approach says that the hands lead, but the waist must move to initiate the hand
workin other words, it should be simultaneous.
To confuse the issue, some good teachers say, rather categorically, that the hands must pull
the body into position, which would seem to contradict that the waist and weight changes
must lead the hands.
I nd in my own practice and teaching that the hands will often feel as if they are pulling
the rest of me into the target, and this is most evident in expressions of horizontal power
(i.e., twisting from side to side), and less useful if you are using vertical power (i.e., the spine
whipping forward and back).
There are frequent references to the desirability of this in other internal arts I have seen or
practised, and I have also read that in the oldest version of the Chen Style, the rst form
you learn uses the waist to lead the hands, and the second (which is faster and more vigor-
ous) has the hands leading the body.
It makes sense to me to be able to use this skill as appropriate in a martial situation, rather
than having to do only one or the other. It is like choosing whether to always make a st or
an open hand. If you can only do one, doesnt that limit you in many ways?
CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES 101

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF PUSHING?

Bagua was invented at a time in Chinese history (late 19th century) in which your oppo-
nent, whether a soldier or a brigand, might be wearing leather or metal armour of some
type. Punching or striking armour wont do as much good as using whole body skills to im-
mobilise or throw an opponent protected in this way. Pushing with the hands becomes an
essential aspect of grappling skills.
In fact, a good push can be a very useful martial tool if you do so with the whole body
and not just with the arms or chest. It can be percussive and shake or jar the person being
pushed in that manner, leaving them stunned and vulnerable to follow-up techniques. A
good push can uproot and imbalance or topple an unstable opponent. A good push can
send someone ying and twisting either upwards or downwards.
In training, pushing can be somewhat safer for the students than striking and grappling. It
came about primarily to make some of the training methods a little safer for daily practice.
Unfortunately, many modern teachers dont have enough of a martial base of any kind to
be able to understand just how useful a push can beand how limiting if that is all you
can do.
DIM-MAK
Tsien-hueh, as dim-mak is often called, refers to the martial use of the acupuncture points
to cause temporary or permanent damage to the Qi ow and to the body. On a pragmatic
level, the value of striking, twisting, or applying pressure to (sealing) these points often
lies in affecting arterial blood ow, dislocating bones, tearing muscles and ligaments, and
traumatising major nerves.
It is a legitimate aspect of learning the traditional internal martial arts, but was custom-
ary taught only to those long-term students who were trusted the most. In the old days, if
you were a dim-mak expert, and everyone knew about it, you were less likely to be attacked
(except by another expert who would presumably have developed the skills necessary to
counteract yours).
However, if you struck a non-expert, then they would expect to develop severe side effects,
even if you hadnt done them any real physical harmand probably would. For example,
if you are convinced that I will make your left earlobe fall off three weeks after touching or
hitting you on the right nipple, then it would be surprising if you didnt feel a little nervous
when hit or three weeks after the fact.
Having said this, I also think that there may well be more to this than meets the eye, at least
on rare occasion. My instructor on the subject, Erle Montague, often points out that it is
useless to attend seminars on death-point striking, to memorise a number of acupuncture
points, and to practise striking them on a willing partner. No one on the street would stand
around and let you hit them the way you probably practise in a martial school setting. In
other words, such theoretical knowledge is useless unless you can keep the attacker from
harming you rstthat is, you have to know how to ght.
Similarly, many of the points work so well because attacking them also affects joints, organs,
or blood and nervous systemsyou dont want to fool around with these areas in an irre-
102 CHAPTER SIX

sponsible manner. Striking the many points that are particularly vulnerable to knockout,
or can cause death in a training setting, is a stupid thing to do if you are a studentand
irresponsible if you are a teacher! While such martial skills may have been necessary when
created in lawless times, they have little place in modern life except as a curiosity.
Self-defence skills are an essential aspect of the traditional Chinese internal artsbut there
is more to those arts than martial skill. However, in regards to dim-mak, life is too short to
waste it developing knowledge that is the unarmed equivalent of nuclear weapons. If you
train to automatically attack lethal pointswhich are often over internal organs that are
rarely easy to rupture, causing peritonitis, or in the throat, or near the eyesit would be as-
tounding if you didnt reexively overreact when frightened, if well trained at the methods
but not in self-control.
Also, wishful thinking aside, hitting someone in a classroom setting is not the same as hit-
ting them if they are attacking or defending with skill and aggression. Watch any Ultimate
Fighting Match or mixed martial arts sporting match, and you will see ghters strike and be
struck on supposedly vulnerable point after point without even looking crabby about it!
So, boys and girls, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and the use of Qi cultivation in
the internal artsno matter how you dene and explore such knowledgeshould promote
good health, not destroy it. Dim-mak is a fascinating and legitimate aspect of the traditional
internal arts, but you should think of it as being one aspect of your higher martial educa-
tionnot the be-all and end-all of your training.
By the way, unlike many of those who have produced videos and books in the English lan-
guage on point striking and dim-mak concepts, Erle Montague has gone out of his way to
help debunk the myths and demonstrate how important it is to not practise such tactics in
a haphazard manner.

EMPTY FORCE
There is grudging admittance that dim-mak was, and is, a traditional aspect of the internal
arts, and it is still possible to nd modern teachers who know something about that aspect,
even though they are rarely willing to teach it. Conversely, after all of these years of train-
ing, meeting, or observing a variety of Chinese martial arts experts, I have not seen any real
evidence that kong-jing (empty force) or the ability to project Qi from a distance to affect
an aggressor are anything other than an empty farce in martial terms.
Of course, having said that, many people continue to believe in it, and a number of inter-
net masters seem to be charging and earning large amounts of money from those who
buy their books and videos and attend workshops on this subject. It is also true that project-
ing Qi in various ways is considered legitimate in Traditional Chinese Medicine, and it is
possible that some talented qigong doctors can emit Qi from their hands for healing; but
their hands have to be very close to the acupuncture points they are trying to affect. And,
martially, an expert using his Qi defensively must still be able to do everything else to keep
an attacker from making contact with and hurting him before Qi can be applied.
I think the idea of being able to defend yourself at a distance is very seductive to the types
of student that are often attracted to bagua and to the internal arts in general until they
CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES 103

nd out that hard work, sweat, and the odd bruise are the main secrets to learning how
to defend yourself. Most of these leave the legitimate instructors, to go in search of those
teachers who specialise in mystery, neo-taoism, and what a cynic might call stage magic.
Misplaced faith is bad enough when limited to solo practice, it is even worse when the
instructor claims to teach martial techniques which only work on a student who is sub-
consciously co-operating with their teacher. For example, if I tell my students that I will
be able to attract them towards me with the Qi in my hand, by hovering that hand close
to their chest, it will work with a signicant proportion of them. If I then explain that it is
not really Qi but just their subconscious co-operation (i.e., autosuggestion) to moving my
hand towards and away from them, it will still work on a signicant proportion of the stu-
dentseven though their intellectual mind knows that it is a trick.
To make it even more confusing and interesting, it is also true that a traditionalist would not
argue with such a modern interpretation of Qi. For him, this would only be an example of
how one persons stronger Qi can inuence or defeat the weaker Qi of another person.
I also think that many of the martial arts hype masters do actually start to believe their
own stories after having repeated them often enough to audiences that swallow the stories
or have never seen better. It is easy to be a big sh in a small pond if the people we teach
have never seen the ocean and sharks. And a lie repeated often enough begins to sound like
the truth!

LIGHT BODY SKILLS

Many stories circulate about the rather fantastic abilities of internal experts of old, and
one of the most common is running up walls and jumping onto rooftops. Anyone who has
seen a kung-fu movie has seen this concept taken to excess. Tung Hai Chuan was reputed
to have this kind of skill, and there are many stories about his ability to leap about like a
gazelle, move silently and swiftly as if he had teleported himself from one spot to another,
etc.
However, having just seen a television documentary about a group of French extreme
sports fanatics in Paris whose idea of a good time is running along fences and rooftops at
top speed, I have to rethink my complete cynicism.
The documentary showed some of their training. These young men, most of whom were
experienced break dancers or extreme skate boarders who had decided that it was more
challenging to do it at a run and without the use of wheels, were practising extreme plyo-
metricsas in hopping one-legged up all the bleachers at a soccer stadium as a warm-up
for their runs through Paris. In fact, they called their sport free-running which about sums
up the madness of running over cars to cross streets and along narrow railings high above
street level.
At one point in the documentary, one of them jumped up from a stationary start and
landed safely balanced on top of a high chain link fence. Another ran up the wall of a
narrow alley in two bounds after a running start, twisted himself around in mid-air, took a
step on the opposite wall then twisted back, and ended his mad climb on a roof. As I was
nishing the edit for this book I started seeing a new car commercial, in which a couple of
104 CHAPTER SIX

these free-runners are shown hurtling along beside the Scion car being advertised, and it is
rather amazing to watch them in action.
So, if this kind of physical prowess is possible today, then maybe the Chinese historical re-
ports of lightness skill may not be as fanciful as we might otherwise think. The human body
is capable of extremes, at least in rare individuals.

SEXUALITY
There is much weirdness in sexual matters in all cultures and I have met or heard of
more than one bagua teacher (sometimes Chinese, more often not) who wraps his classes in
pseudo-taoism as a way to get young sexual partners. To be fair, though, there is certainly a
legitimate aspect to the theories behind Taoist sexual activity from a traditional viewpoint,
butcaveat emptor (translation: let the horny beware!)I also think that the old Chi-
nese approach to preventing or limiting male ejaculation to preserve vital uids and ener-
gies may often have had something to do with elderly rich men trying to satisfy the needs of
a household with several wives, concubines, and attractive female maids!
Anatomically, using any method to stop ejaculation is more likely to simply cause retro-
grade emission, in which the sperm is released, but forced backwards into the bladder in-
stead of being ejected immediately in the normal manner. So, someone who actually tries
to use one of the recommended Taoist practices for preventing ejaculation is liable to only
end up thinking he hasnt ejaculated, as he is still losing Qi when he urinates after having
engaged in retrograde emission.
Abstinence as a way of purifying the monk or the warrior is an age-old tradition in both
Eastern and Western cultures. The Knights Templar, the Knights of St. John are examples
of mediaeval attempts to unite the two concepts. This agenda also often gets carried to
ridiculous extremes by those with a sexual/emotional axe to grind. In fact, many famous,
and not so famous, masters have been fond of female company, and have continued to
demonstrate that interest into old age. The spirit and Qi are still vital although the body
grows old.
It is also relevant to point out that many of the best Chinese masters I have met were skirt
chasers, heavy drinkers, heavy smokers, ate whatever food was put in front of themin
other words, ordinary human beings, warts and all. Too many Western students of the
Chinese internal arts are looking for the archetypal master, as I noted in an earlier chapter,
from having watched too many episodes of the old kung-fu television series as children.
Oh, and by the way, there are many stories about Tung Hai Chuan having been a eunuch,
and while I dont want to prick anyones sensibilities on the subject of eunuchs, the history
of this kind of mutilation is quite fascinating. Many cultures, both Western (Italian castrati
opera singers as recently as the 20th century) and Oriental (eunuchs of harem fame), have
used castration in different forms for different cultural ends.
Sufce it to say that there were different forms of castration used to produce different kinds
of eunuchs. One method involved removing the penis surgically (a straw was inserted into
the stump during the surgical process to keep the urethra from closing during the healing
process). If the person survived the surgery, his hormones and physical appearance would
CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES 105

remain intact. The other methods involved crushing the testicles or removing them surgi-
cally, and this would affect hormonal production and physique.
All methods had a high death rate, and it should tell you something about human nature
and desperation that made parents take their sons to have the procedure done, so they
could get the employment that required castration. And there were still adult volunteers,
as being xed was the only way to ensure attaining some positions in Chinese government
service.
I have no idea what, if anything, was done to Tung Hai Chuan and, if half the stories are
true about his martial abilities, even if it was possible, I wouldnt want to stick my hand
down in his pants to investigate the state of his genitalia.
It is also always a good idea to introduce common sense when faced with extreme views
on human sexuality, especially when taken out of the social and historical context in which
they rst arose.

CROSS-TRAINING
As the years and the decades roll by, your priorities and interests will change. What was
important at the age 25 in terms of your internal arts (e.g., developing physical skill, learn-
ing self-defence skills, or becoming a better ghter) will be less important at the age 40 or
50. Assuming that you have shown some aptitude and have practised regularly, this is partly
a reection of the fact that you will have improved your health and also achieved real self-
defence skills.
I think it is also fair to say that studying any competent internal art with diligence can in-
crease the pace at which one grows up. However, time and experience also play an essential
part in whether or not you are still reacting like a child to all of lifes tribulations by the time
you are middle-aged. There is real magic in competent instruction and diligent practice
over the long term, but it is hardly a miracle cure for all of our physical and emotional
problems. Coming to terms with this is also part and parcel of the maturing process as a
practitioner. We all want miracleseven those who seem the most cynical want to feel as if
they are tapping into something special. It is very hard to come to terms with the issue of
skill and wisdom coming only through long-term effort. In particular, the martial skills can
only be purchased through a credit card issued by the Bank of Blood, Sweat, and Tears.
By middle age, your skills should have reached the point that the arts are no longer a major
focus, an obsession, but simply an important aspect of your daily life. You have come to
terms with both your skills and limitations as a practitioner, and learned to value your daily
training for its own sake, and not just as a vehicle for self-improvement or good health. One
of the best pieces of advice I have ever had from Erle is Do your internal art to live well;
dont live to do your internal art!
In the good old days, a martial arts professional in China would train regularly with a com-
petent teacher, as well as practising on his or her own for many years, and rarely, if ever,
get the opportunity to study anything other than his system. Of course, those who earned
a living as body or convoy guards might garner the hard way considerable experience with
other ghting styles and incorporate aspects of what they survived into their own prac-
106 CHAPTER SIX

tice. However, it was not acceptable, except under rare circumstances, to train with several
teachers.
In modern times, some martial artists have spent much time and effort studying a variety
of systems, either in-depth or supercially, for many purposes. Unfortunately, the latter cat-
egory of teacher or practitioner usually doesnt spend enough time at any of the secondary
arts to really understand how they are different from what has already been learned.
Particularly, for starting to develop skills that would be useful against a real attack by some-
one who has some experience and skill at real ghting, it is essential to study arts that have
some form of body contact, albeit in controlled manner. For example, it has been my
experience that those modern internal arts teachers who actually have some real combat
skills have either done judo or Western wrestling, shuai-jiao or Chinese wrestling, or learned
Western boxing skills.
It is not that these arts are superior to the traditional arts, it is just that the serious student
will learn how to take body contact and physical abuse (falling, being hit with some power,
being thrown, the feel of being grappled at close quarters) with the minimum of tension.
You have to learn to relax as much as necessary to avoid injury. The same is also true of
those taiji schools where the students have learned to absorb impact by allowing themselves
to be hurled into walls, sometimes padded with old mattresses, sometimes not.
Perhaps, part of the problem with the reputation of cross-training lies in the very glut of
young masters who study one or two years each of a variety of hard styles and then, as
they move into middle age, add a slow taiji form, or wu-shu style bagua form, or qigong to
their bloated curriculums! It is quite depressing to surf the net and see website after website
promoting these new styles to the general martial public. While I am sure that some of
these innovators are doing their best and may even have something to offer to beginners,
I am equally sure that even more are only fooling themselves and their own students with
their abilities, or are creating a new style to make money or boost their egos.
There are not too many modern Sun Lu Tangs or Chen Pan Lings, but we should not as-
sume that people with martial genius dont exist anymore. Cross-training when you have a
solid foundation in one art can really help the learning process in the other Chinese internal
and external arts. Sadly, most modern practitioners dont have a solid foundation before
they go off studying other approaches, and lack the aptitude to absorb not only the similari-
ties, but the differences between the arts they are learning.
From my limited experience, usually the students who are most keen to cross-train prema-
turely tend to focus on how the new art(s) are similar to what they already know, as opposed
to trying to analyse how the new system or teacher does things differently. And, as some-
times the differences are subtle, it can be problematic to sort the wheat from the chaff.
In any case, I think it is important for the serious martial student to learn the basics of both
stand-up ghting and ground ghting in the early stages of training, covering the founda-
tions of both. With a coherent system, there is no reason to completely focus on any one
range of ghting to the exclusion of the others. After students are procient with basic
stand up and ground ghting techniques, I recommend spending proportionately more
time on stand-up ghting skills if your concern is more self-defence rather than sport. In
CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES 107

particular, this means having learned how to do break falls and rolls that might actually
work on surfaces other than mats or tatami.
If you look carefully at any combat art or sport (the ones which actually involve some form
of non-cooperative contact ghting), you will nd that most of the participants are young.
How long can one realistically hope to apply ground ghting techniques? It will depend on
the person. If you go to judo tournaments, you will see older competitorsalthough they
usually dont compete with younger ghters, but in the seniors categories. On the other
hand, how many competitive boxers do you see past age 30? Not many!
Understanding a principle and knowing how to ght are not the same.The greatest bagua,
hsing-i, or taiji master alive will fare no better on the ground than a complete beginner if
they havent actually practised ground ghting. If understanding a principle translated into
actual ability, why practise at all?
In the last fteen years, I have learned and/or discarded many forms and methods from
taiji, bagua, hsing-i, and liu he ba fa. It has been an oftentimes lonely and frustrating jour-
ney for various reasons. The late Jou Tsung Hwa said that you have to be your own teacher,
and he was very right in some ways, but very wrong in that the average beginner has no
hope of developing real skill of any kind unless he or she has competent instruction from
role models who are good at both teaching and doing whatever is being taught. Erle has
also said more than once, If I have reached any heights in my skill, it is only from standing
on the shoulders of giants! This is a sentiment that I now understand.
The longer I teach and train, the truer it seems that real understanding can only come from
having as wide as possible an experience of competent forms of martial art and then prac-
tising more and more of less and less. This, of course, seems like a paradox, and it isthe
internal arts are full of them.
True experiential learning of any mind/body discipline is rst a process of accumulation,
and then a process of de-cluttering and simplication. I suppose, a few geniuses can skip
stage one and arrive at the nal stage, but I have met very few in almost 30 years of doing
martial arts. It seems to me that it eventually becomes essential for a serious student of any
good approach to the internal arts to nd a retirement packageas the desire to experi-
ence and do everything is as counterproductive in the long run as being too narrow in your
focus and only following one approach to being internal.
One aspect of the Chinese martial arts that has always made me a little grumpy is the ten-
dency for instructors to imply, or come out and say that they are masters of many styles. It
is not uncommon to meet a teacher, Chinese or otherwise, whose business card or yers list
him or her as a master of wing-chun, shaolin, both Chen and Yang taiji, hsing-i and bagua,
as well as qigong of different types. I have met a few over the years who actually are good at
a variety of artsbut these are few and far between. The average generalist of this kind
is only fooling himself and his students by teaching one or two main styles and a smattering
of forms or methods from the other arts.

IT BEARS EMPHASISING THAT YOU CANNOT UNDERSTAND A STYLE

BY LEARNING ONE OR TWO OF ITS FORMS.
108 CHAPTER SIX

I was discussing this issue with a colleague the other day, and we agreed that only the best
and the worst students attended a lot of workshops and did serious cross-training. Hope-
fully, he and I both fall in the rst category! Here is the problem in a nutshellif you study
one art deeply, you will learn a great deal, but you also limit your potential for growth by not
studying how other systems do the same thing slightly (or greatly) differently. Conversely,
if you dabble in workshops and instructors, spending a year in one system and six months
in another, you can gain a supercial veneer or knowledge but will never actually learn
anything in depth.
If you are young and t, I would recommend boxing as a great martial sport to explore.
As self-defence skills go, I would put my money on an experienced Western boxer (even an
older, out-of-shape exponent) who has to ght any type of modern martial artist, black belt
or not. Boxing has had its ups and downs over the decades, but the sweet science is just as
profound in its principles and techniques as any of the other martial arts when it is well-
taught and well-practised. It has the advantage of simplicity, and its only disadvantages are
the stamina and conditioning required, making it a young mans art.
Years ago I was friends with a 50 year-old man who was learning taijiquan for fun. He
had been an amateur and professional boxer and still trained and coached young boxers. It
was both sadly funny and instructional to see him atten the younger and tter taiji instruc-
tors who sparred with him at the school where we trained. Anyone who says an experienced
boxer is automatically inferior to a traditional martial artist has never had the experience
of being hit by one.
Finally, here is another internal arts conundrum about the difference in the three main
internal arts. I is phrased in the context of my university degree in ancient and mediaeval
history:Hsing-i is the impenetrable stability and shock of a square of heavy infantry with
spears; Bagua is the swift fury and unpredictable tactics of light cavalry; and Taiji is a walled
fortress from which the defenders make sudden sallies. Martial geniuses can mobilise and
use effectively all of these, while the average expert understands one strategy to a greater
or lesser degree.
Chapter Seven
Weapons Forms & Function

In the old days, the need to become skilful at defending against, and using, a variety of
edged and blunt impact weapons was a necessity for those with bagua skills while employed
as bodyguards or as professional escorts for groups travelling between the cities. For this
purpose bagua uses the common weapons of that era, two shortthe sword and broad-
sword, and two longthe staff and spear. It also specialised in a variety of smaller edged
weapons of various shapes; the most famous of which were the Deer Horn Knives.
Bagua also became famous for its use of very large weapons. Various styles utilised extra
heavy and long straight swords, broadswords, and spears. Incidentally, I am not sure that
oversized weapons are ever of any real value in combat outside of their original purpose
under certain battleeld conditions. For example, long spears were designed to be used en
masse to hold off groups of cavalry or masses of similarly armed men. They are of less use
at close range, and oversized chopping weapons are of limited use when ghting in close
quarters or in an urban setting.
In fact, the oversized bagua knives (dao, as broadswords are called in Chinese) were origi-
nally meant to cut the legs out from under a horse, so you could more easily get at the op-
ponent riding the animal. They were not for duels between men on foot, as the skilful man
with a shorter weapon, or a pair of shorter weapons, has a real advantage against the fellow
with the big cumbersome weapon, if he can get within the range of that longer weapon.
There are certain training benets (relearning the balance of a top-heavy weapon, develop-
ing stronger muscles) to practising with an oversized weapon of any kind. However, this is
not my cup of tea. It is hard to be impressed by the modern versions of these forms dem-
onstrated with light and overly exible replicas of the original weapons. When you can see
the blade bending oppily as the wielder does his form, it is less impressive in terms of the
potential martial value of the performance.
The movements associated with each bagua weapon help to develop the body in ways
that are not often easily accomplished through empty-hand forms and exercises. Having
a weapon in one or both hands changes the ways in which you can move and necessitates
110 CHAPTER SEVEN

a heightened sense of awareness of your body and the space through which both you and
the weapon(s) move.
You have to learn not only to control your body and its six directions, but also extend that
to the weapon(s) moving forward and back, up and down, and side to side. This is hard
enough to achieve when practising by yourself, but these new skills become even more
crucial when you are trying to be attentive of someone else who is trying to use a weapon
against you.
So, in the old days, you had to not only know how to use at least one weapon in a practised
and efcient manner, but you also had to have some idea of how each of the other types of
weapons you were liable to have to ght against would operate in the hands of a skilled op-
ponent. No easy answers once you add weaponry to the equation of developing advanced
bagua martial skills.

TRADITIONAL WEAPONS TRAINING

As in all Chinese martial systems, weapon training is an essential aspect of traditional ba-
gua. There are a host of weapons used in solo and partner training: sword, double sword,
single-handed and two-handed broadsword, spear, staff, axe, and knife, as well as a variety
of weird and wonderful specialty weapons, like the famous semicircular swords and the
judges pens. The later are metal rods with a swivelling ring that ts over your middle
nger to allow you to grip and twirl these handleless ice picks.
It is best to practise applications only with wooden weapons at rst. Not just for safety but
also to minimise the strain in your wrists and arms. Practice with metal weapons can be
reserved to solo form practice. It also doesnt hurt to wear safety glasses, helmets, protective
gear on your hands, forearms and elbows, as these are prime targets for many techniques.
You can also improvise more complete protective outts from hockey, Lacrosse, and BMX
bicycling gear and look like an extra in a cheap rip-off of the classic Road Warrior epic as
a bonus.
Any solo form designed to teach the use of an edged weapon is best done with a good
quality metal weapon, although it is best not to sharpen the bladeeven if the quality of
the blade allows for thatuntil you are sure you are doing everything properly and safely.
Getting a well-balanced combat steel sword or broadsword, much less Deer Horn Knives,
will be very difcult and expensive.
I have not had much luck buying metal weapons by mail order. You rarely get what you
think you are buying quality-wise from the Chinese mass-produced wu-shu weapons facto-
ries. In addition, you need to spend some time holding and using a weapon to see if the bal-
ance and weight is suitable to your needs and level of expertise. Real quality replica weap-
ons are worth the expense for the serious practitioners although you should be prepared
to pay hundreds of dollars to get qualityassuming you can nd such in North America.
By the way, the wooden and cheap metal weapons available today tend to splinter or break
fairly easily, and it can get expensive replacing broken equipment.
One of the greatest benets of training with any weapon is learning how the shape and
structure of each weapon affects, determines, and limits its martial function. While all
WEAPONS FORMS & FUNCTION 111

weapons share similarities within their broad categorieslong or short, edged or impact,
each has special attributes and limitations that you must get accustomed to. It is also true
that all weapons are the same in the sense that they can only be properly used by a skilful
practitioner whose skills have become such that he or she could literally pick up any item
and use it as an improvised weapon in an emergency.
One of the hardest skills to learn is how to hold each weapon with just the right amount
of power and muscular force. Even some relatively skilful practitioners will discover that
they are not as relaxed or as strong as they thought when trying to master the correct grip
with the required exibility of wrist and elbow. It is also true that much of the difculty in
learning to hold a weapon properly comes from developing the proper grip using only the
thumb and one or two ngers.
There are different theories as to which ngers should be used, and the best way to discover
what works best for you is to experiment with a variety of grips. The complexity is in hav-
ing a grip exible enough to allow you to manipulate the weapon easily while still retaining
the strength to absorb an impact without losing your grip on the weapon. It is not easy to
learn this, and you wont if you never train with a partner and actually practise a variety of
applications with him or her.
These forms need lots of space for practicean important consideration, as with any of
the more traditional forms. There is literally no point in learning the weapon if you cannot
practise it for lack of indoor training spaceremember winter! Practising in a park is an
option, but this is not China, and pedestrians are not used to the sight of ailing swords
the way they are in Shanghai or Beijing. If you are planning to practise in the park or your
backyard, you will need a fair bit of privacy. More than one of my students have had the
police arrive to question them when someone phoned in a complaint that some crazy guy
is waving a sword in the park.
If I may speak to my own students for a moment. I believe that it is important to develop
a minimal understanding of the solo form and martial usage for at least one of the follow-
ing weapons, and to have some comprehension of the main characteristics of usage for the
others, especially if you plan to teach bagua at some point.

THE BROADSWORD
Throughout baguas relatively short history, the broadsword was the weapon of choice of
many practitioners, especially those who worked as bodyguards and caravan escorts. This
weapon has always been a mainstay of all styles of Chinese Wu-shu (literally war arts).
It is very efcient against a variety of other weapons, especially when used in conjunction
with internal body mechanics. It is relatively easy to achive competency with broadsword.
This is why it was the primary weapon of common soldiers in ancient Chinese armies.
Although the solo form and applications that you will be learning dont come from Erle
Montaigue, they are based on traditional sets that have been modied according to my
understanding of broadsword use. I make no pretensions that I can provide expert weapon
training, but from what I have seen of modern baguawhat I teach is pretty good func-
112 CHAPTER SEVEN

tionally. However, if you are planning a career as a caravan guard, I suggest you start
searching for a more competent weapons master than me!
The broadsword is primarily used at medium and short range against a variety of weap-
ons. Bagua ghters were renowned for their skill at applying close quarter ghting tactics.
A slicing weapon, its comparative weight and the somewhat top-heavy design of the blade
makes it an excellent weapon only for someone with the size and strength to wield ita
lumberjacks axe with a three foot razor edge, so to speak.
The study of any competent traditional internal style, bagua included, is a process of learn-
ing how to efciently employ the factors of distance and angle, and generate short power
in a specic manner. Using the broadsword is no different. The motions are often short and
quick, and the practitioner usually keeps the blade in front of the body to protect himself.
Because the broadsword is a single-edged weapon, the palm, forearm, or even the body of
the wielder can be pressed against the dull side at times to assist in blocking or deecting ac-
tions and to express whole body power at close range, especially if the opponent is attempt-
ing to use the same tactics. Many different aspects of your bare hand training will become
clearer as you seek to apply the principles of bagua to this weapon. I am quite fond of this
form, as it is not overly complicated, doesnt take too much space to perform (compared to
the other traditional weapon forms), and its characteristics suit my build. Like hsing-i, the
movements of the broadsword are best suited to a heavier or taller practitioner although
anyoneno matter what their relative sizecan benet.
If you are studying bagua elsewhere and can only learn this weapon, try to nd an instruc-
tor who actually knows what they are doing. Even a marginal understanding of combative
function will help make your solo form work challenging, rewarding, and fun.
Training Tips:
One of the hardest things to get used to in the solo form is the use of the wrist and
the elbow to help generate the circles created by coordinating footwork with the use
of the waist.
In training applications, it is essential to remember that one of the key concepts is
disarming your opponent, and I dont just mean knocking the weapon out of his hand
although that is a legitimate application whenever possible. Once you have parried,
deected, or, as a last resort, blocked the attackers weapon, you must immediately try
to cut the hand or arm controlling it before trying to nish off the attacker with a cut
to the head, torso, or vital points.
When bracing the weapon, remember to use the palmnot the ngersand to keep
your nger tips where they belong on your fingers. Do not allow them to protrude
where an opportunistic attacker might be tempted to slice them off with a sudden
change of direction of his weapons edge.
When connecting to the attackers weapon, remember that the guard is a useful tool
for knocking the attackers weapon out of range for a quick counter-attack of your
own. To be able to do this, you have to be sensitive, applying the right amount of
pressure to the opponents blade with yours and be aware of the other fellows hilt if
WEAPONS FORMS & FUNCTION 113

you are at close range. Getting smashed in the face by the butt end of the handle of
his sword or broadsword would be very distracting!
Practising competently should teach you about extending your reach and force to the
tip and the edge of the weapon; and, as it usually has only one sharp edge, it is a little
safer to do so when you rst start exploring weapons.
The bold, twisting, wide-swinging tactics of this weapon should have elegance and
smoothness, as well as martial effectiveness in the use of angles around the body.
Doing a well-structured broadsword form properly is like being inside a steel cage or
at the centre of a hurricane. Every stroke should cut cleanly along one of the eight
cardinal directions in the triangles that ll your circle. Have you gured out this bagua
conundrum yetnding triangles in circles and the circles in triangles?
If you dont keep your balance when advancing, you are liable to fall over from your
misguided momentum if your stroke falls on emptiness (i.e., your target had the skill
to move at the last moment). You must learn to use the weight of the sabre, not de-
pend on it to power your stroke. The strikes are best thought of as chopping slices.
This is one way to learn to really relax the shoulder, elbow, and wrist; but it is often a
rather hard way of learning to do so.

THE LONG STAFF

The bagua solo staff form that Erle used to teach is a very difcult one to practise due to the
extraordinary number of techniques, the physical complexity of some of the moves (e.g.,
doing a somersault over the staff), and the amount of oor space that it takes to practise, as
it is done in straight lines. When I have asked him in recent years, he told me that very few
WTBA members were still practising, much less teaching this form. I have seen one or two
forms demonstrated in North America that seem to be shortened versions of the same set.
Although the solo form and applications I teach to my more experienced bagua students
dont come from Erle Montaigue, they are based on traditional bagua staff sets that have
been modied according to my understanding of this weapon. As with the broadsword, I
make no pretensions that I can provide expert weapon training; however, what I teach is
not too bad in martial function.
This solo set is done in a circular pattern and has a limited number of techniques, so it is
more suitable for use as an introduction to this weapon. The bagua staff can vary in length
although the shortest (for indoor practice) should be determined by placing one end of the
staff on the oor and measuring to the height of your eyebrows. For outside usage, it should
be proportional to your height, and longer is not necessarily better. It should not be too
much longer than eight feet, and 3/4 to an inch in diameter.
The whip-like force generated in many of the sweeping strikes is expressed through the
forward end of the staff in blocking, sticking and striking. Many of the techniques for this
long weapon are adaptable to those used with a spear. Some styles of bagua also use, or
used, a somewhat shorter staff that had a spearhead at each end. Training methods include
striking various objects, including your partners staff, to learn how to generate power from
relatively short distances without having the reverberations rebound into your own hands.
114 CHAPTER SEVEN

The staff moves through diagonal planes around the practitioner to strike and to intimi-
date. Thrusting attacks using the tip of the staff move ercely along a single line, and the
forward wrist is used to direct the weapon, as well as to move the forward end of the staff
to parry, stick, and circle in defence and attack. Movements to the left and right, or up and
down are controlled by the rear hand.
Striking force is generated near the end of each posture, and is a wave-like momentum de-
veloped by the practitioners lower back, spine, and waist. The wrist and shoulder may add
to this force, or be used to change the direction subtly if the stroke is used as a defence and
followed by a thrusting action. Even without a metal spearhead, the shock of being struck
by the end of a hardwood or waxwood staff is nothing that can be ignored.
Training Tips:
The staff is usually held with at least half of the shaft ahead of the lead hand, al-
though there are postures that use the stick with the hands positioned so that you have
three equal lengths with your two hands as the dividing points.
There are swinging movements in which both hands are held quite close together at
one end of the staff and, while this can increase your reach suddenly to confound an
opponent, it also means that your weapon will take longer to retrieve to a more secure
grip.
Some of the thrusting actions are done with a screwing action forward and back, and
this is an essential aspect of traditional staff and spear work. Twisting it forward in-
creases penetration. Twisting in the opposite direction, as you retract a thrust, assists
in snatching back your weapon if the opponent is able to grab the shaft. If you were
doing this with a spear, the sharp metal of the edges of the spearhead would sever or
injure the hand(s) trying to grapple or immobilise your weapon.
Assuming that your weapon is long enough and made from good quality wood, you
should nd that there is a shaking quality to the business end of a thrust or swing, and
that this was considered a good sign among practitioners.
Unlike the edged weapons, the staff is often taken over the head, as such defensive
moves are frequent and can vary from blocking an overhand strike down to your head
to setting up a throw if your weapon is grabbed with two hands by an unwary oppo-
nent.

DOUBLE SWORD FORM

This form was the rst of Erles bagua weapon forms that I learned back in the early nine-
ties, and I gather that not many members of the WTBA practise it anymorewhich is a
shame. It is a lovely, if demanding set. As you use a short straight sword in each hand, the
changes of the circular solo set must be done on both sides of the body. This makes for a
very long sequence indeed.
Functionally, using two edged weapons is much harder than it looks. There is a tendency
not to pay enough attention to one sword while wielding the other. A few cuts and scrapes
WEAPONS FORMS & FUNCTION 115

from a metal sword from carelessness while practising on your own can soon set you straight
in solo practise, but it takes longer to learn about in applications.
When gripping each sword, one must learn to do so gently but rmly with two ngers and
the thumb, not all ve ngers as this lessens the ability to twirl the swords with the wrists.
Done properly, these twirling actions are not for the show, but serve specic martial pur-
poses, such as diverting an intercepted attack downwards and then twirling the blades to
effect a counter-cut immediately after.
The internal energy may be manifested in the sword as a quivering of the blade during
fa-jing movements, or as a sharp penetrating movement generated by the spine and legs.
The jian, whether long or relatively short, as in this case (each blade should be 2630 inch-
es in length, depending on your relative height), is a double-edged blade that literally cuts
both ways, and is as effective on the backstroke as on the advance. The footwork is nimble
and lively, and half of the use of a straight sword of any length is learning to sidestep and
evade attacks as much as parry or block them. The last tactic is reserved for emergencies
and done with the thicker bottom third of the blade.
The jian is often compared to a Chinese dragon: fast, graceful, and frightening. Where you
would block with the broadsword, you dodge with the straight sword; where you would
slam, you slice; where you would charge, you circle or sidestep. However, unlike the sabre,
the sword is never allowed to cut above the crown of the head for a variety of reasons. For
example, you wouldnt want to sever your connection with the Yang energy of Heaven,
would you? Of course, a pragmatic dullard might also think that doing this makes it less
likely that you will accidentally scalp yourself while swinging the bloody thing.
On the other hand, let me add that competent internal swordsmen will use some move-
ments that make it supercially look as if the sword has gone over the head. However, if
you examine the posture carefully you will see that the wielder has actually swung his arm
and the hilt and blunt part of the lower blade over his head and not the edged part of the
blade. To the casual observer there is not much apparent difference, but the wielder is less
likely to cut or hit himself with the sword in this way.
To be effective, you must connect your blade, not the edge, to the opponents and then use
the weight and movement of your body to simultaneously deect his blade and affect his
balance. This should create an immediate opportunity to slice the wrist or arm that holds
the sword to literally disarm him or her prior to a nishing stroke, if such is necessary.
While it is sometimes okay to trade blows with an unarmed opponent if you have a better
target, it is never so with edged weapons. You must evade, parry, or block every attack, and
your opponent likewise.
This sword form looks best when done by someone agile and tall with long arms. It can be
practised with benet by anyone, and is particularly suited to women and smaller men, as it
relies on speed and precision rather than weight. However, using the sword (or two in this
case) is not easy, especially if one strives to develop real skill, as opposed to doing a form. It
is very demanding of a supple wrist that is really connected to the waist and feet.
As to weight and stiffness of the bladeI am afraid that heavier is better when attempting
to replicate realistic combat skills, as opposed to the light weapons used in wu-shu perfor-
116 CHAPTER SEVEN

mance skills-oriented forms. The people who enter competitions have weapons with blades
bending like tinfoil. The lighter the weapon, the faster they can move, and they dont have
to worry about striking armour or another better quality sword.
I have also read and been told by more than one instructor that the intensive study of the
sword is an excellent way to both health and enlightenment in the long run. I went through
a long period of time in which I had little interest in weapons training of any kind; but now
I derive a great deal of satisfaction from the forms I practise.
Certainly, the sword has been imbued with a spiritual quality in many societiesboth West-
ern and Oriental. I am sure Sigmund Freud would have something to say about the signi-
cance of swords to men, but then again he seems to have been more than a little obsessed
with the penis himself !
Training Tips:
Although it appears otherwise, you must never move both swords at exactly the same
time in any of the postures, as one blade will be defending, parrying, blocking, or
sticking the attackers weapon while the other cuts the attacker.
When thrusting, it is customary to keep the blade at when attacking the upper part
of the body, so that the blade can slip between the ribs and not get stopped by bone,
only inicting a supercial wound.
When defending, the knee joints are also useful targets, as the attacker would have
trouble hurting you if he cannot walk properly or stand on two feet anymore.
Blocking is normally done with both weapons against a heavier or longer weapon,
and you will try to use the last half of the blades of your weapons to do so, as that
would be the thickest, strongest parts of real swords.

DEER HORN KNIVES

These weapons, also called Crescent Swords or Mandarin Duck Knives, are always used
in pairs.They are short-range martial tools especially designed to disarm the opponent and
be effective against a variety of types of long and short traditional weapons. One of the
ght scenes in the recent kung-fu epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon shows a ght scene
between one of the villains and a bounty hunter who uses a pair of these weapons.
Deer Horn Knives come in a variety of sizes. The ones used in Erles form are of the rarer
Bei-jing variation with one of the forward prongs twice as long as the other. They can be
used for thrusting as well as locking and cutting. At the basic level, you block or check the
attackerss weapon with one of yours while counter-attacking with the other.
Using this weapon properly also requires that ideally you attack the opponents hand which
is holding the weapon, rather than just making contact blade on blade. Of course, this
requires that your appreciation of timing and distance must be much better than your
opponents.
The knives are difcult for an opponent to wrestle from your grip, as there are four points
and seven edges in seemingly every direction near the handle. This means also that they can
WEAPONS FORMS & FUNCTION 117

cut the wielder as well as the opponent. In one motion, the back hook may block a weapon
while the front hook strikes, followed by a ripping cut from one of the edges. As the knife is
withdrawn, the other hooks on it may slash through the area of rst contact.
I have had the chance over the years to see and handle two pairs of these weapons. One set
was a reproduction of an antique pair, handmade by a metalworker who collected antique
Chinese weapons. The other pair were supposed to be antiques from the turn of the cen-
tury. Neither pair were identical in design to each other or to the ones we have and use in
my classes. Both pairs seemed well-balanced and potentially lethal.
Neither of them had sharpened edges on the two short prongs that protect the wielders
hand, and neither of those prongs had sharp tips, which makes sense from the premise of
protecting the hands holding the weapons. Erle Montaigue states that the originals used for
the form he teaches had points and edges everywhere, but told me that one can use the ones
without the sharp edges for safety reasons. However, once one becomes procient, it is a
nal test of your ability to do the form properly using the knives with all sharpened edges.
Erles solo form is an excellent example of how a weapon form can be demanding and
simple all at the same time. I recommend it highly to those who have some skill and interest
in developing a bagua weapon.
Training Tips:
It is very difcult to use these weapons at rst if you dont have very strong and ex-
ible wrists and elbows, and many of the postures demand a great deal of precision to
avoid hitting yourself in the hands and the head while practising. I have given myself
some nasty cuts with the blunt metal weapons that I practise with, as have the three
students who are learning this set from me.
The applications are often quite simple if you have the requisite bagua body mechan-
ics. One of the keys to effective application is to remember that you will often try to
stick and check the attackers weapon with one of yours while trying to slide up his
weapon to cut his hand and trying to get a vital target with the other knife.
These weapons are very good for taking off heads, and I am told that this was the
tactic of preference in the old daysblock or evade, and use one or both blades (in a
scissoring action) to cut off the head, or, at the very least, slice through the neck. The
other characteristic use of this weapon is to trap a blade between the two front prongs,
and by twisting your knife suddenly wrench the weapon out of the other persons grip
or, if that fails, immobilise the weapon for the moment that it takes you to counter-at-
tack with your other knife.

CONCLUSION
While these solo and application sets have little functional role in self-defence in the mod-
ern age of guns and biological weapons, they remain important tools for rening your un-
derstanding of bagua, and they can also be a lot of fun to practise. You remember having
fun, dont you?
118 CHAPTER SEVEN

Particularly for more advanced practitioners who have become a little complacent about
their skill levels, learning to use these weapons can be a way of exploring subtle aspects
of the training, and of discovering how little you really know about the big picture of the
traditional martial arts.
Oh, and remember my mothers advice from the section in Chapter Five on defending
against knives.
Chapter Eight
Teaching and Ethics

The instructors I have met over the years whom I respect the most have said that their
art has to keep growing and changing to remain anything beyond a museum piece. Sadly,
the ip side of this issue is that most teachers dont have the skills, experience, or personal
genius to bring anything new and valuable to any aspect of the traditional curriculums
without ruining what came before.
Similarly, a teacher should be an expert in what he or she is teaching, both theoretically and
practically, before he or she begins to do so. Conversely, it is equally true that teaching can
make a good practitioner and teacher even better with time. Of course, this also implies
that the students you teach a decade or two down the road will get better instruction than
those you taught at the beginning of your career.
But, if it is of any consolation to those who realise that they were the early students of a
particular teacher, I am sure that even though Stradivari was producing superior violins at
the end of his career, the ones he rst made were probably still pretty damn good. Everyone
has to start somewhere on every journey.
It is also true that those who learn in traditional clubs with large group classes will be learn-
ing mostly from senior students, rather than having the attention of the chief instructor.
This is not an easy way to learn as the quality of teaching will vary from senior student to
senior student, but the variety in itself can be stimulating to the inquiring student with a
drive to understand which of these lesser role models is on track for any particular topic.
In theory, a good teacher will assign coaching roles only to those apprentice instructors
with the requisite skills and will be present at most of the classes if needed. Consequently,
in some more traditional bagua environments you will be expected to teach as part of the
long-term learning process, and your interest in teaching is of less relevance than the wishes
of the chief instructor.
However, in a more modern bagua environment you may have to decide if you want to
teach. If you dont want to be a coach for those junior to you in the student body, you
should be able to say No, thanks! without repercussions.
120 CHAPTER EIGHT

SHOULD YOU TEACH?

So, lets assume that you have put in your time as a beginner and intermediate level stu-
dent, and after 35 years you have some experience helping your instructor to coach the
newer students, and you nd that you have some interest or aptitude for teaching on your
ownwith or without your teachers formal blessing.
It is always courteous to ask your teacher if you have his or her permission to start classes
on your own, though courtesy seems to be a dying art and politically incorrect these days.
Failing to do so with a more traditionally-minded teacher can have repercussions. (Being
ignored from then on as part of his or her martial arts family is the mildest and most
common.) It also makes sense to be part of a larger organisation to be seen as legitimate
by potential students although the bagua/Chinese internal arts world is full of fascinating
loners as well.
As a teaching novice, there are lots of things to consider: teaching yet another group of
beginners who dont look as if they can lift the TV remote control, much less balance briey
on one leg; trying to nd the time and energy to practise for yourself, either during class or
after, having spent much time teaching basics to others; maintaining your enthusiasm when
only one or two students bother to make an appearance at a group class.
Whoops! Those were some of the many reasons not to teach. Seriously though, teaching
can teach the teacher many valuable lessons about his or her own understanding of the
art. It is one thing is to be able to do a form or training method, quite anotherto explain
and demonstrate your performance in such a way that you help someone else along the
same path you have followed. In the old days, you wouldnt have dared to teach without
the permission of a respected, long-term instructor. For many reasons today, this is rarely
the case.
Unless you are fortunate enough to be under the supervision of a competent instructor in
a group of some size and quality, there is also the issue of often having to create your own
training partners to be able to practise the two-person methods and forms.
Deciding that you are ready and want to start teaching is one thing, adjusting to being the
role model instead of a student is another.

WHAT AND HOW YOU TEACH

The longer I teach, the more I realise that teaching and reteaching the basics is essential for
most students, even though most students (especially the ones with aptitude) will get bored
with these fundamentals before realising how important they are. It is also tempting to sim-
plify the material to make it more accessible to a larger number of students, but, in general,
this should be resisted, as it does nothing for the art and, in the long run, cheats the students
of the potential of this great discipline. However, it is essential to realise that in teaching the
principles and methods to your students, less is morethe larger the curriculum (especially
for beginners), the less time there is for them to develop skills at any one thing in one or two
hours a week of class time, not to mention the few tful moments of practice that most of
them will do on their own.
TEACHING AND ETHICS 121

In the good old days students often studied with their teacher every day before going to
work or in the evening after work; nowadays most studentseven the better oneswill feel
herculean in their dedication if they come to class three times a week for about an hour.
It is not easy to predict how quickly a particular student will make progress. Some students
can come to class obsessively and still make little progress while others make the most of
one or two hours of class time per week. Progress is always an individual matter.
It is important to structure your classes, as most beginners want to feel that they are being
supervised and led, not left to practise on their own. I have often been told that there is a
great deal of structure to my classes compared to other kung-fu classes that the beginner
may have done elsewhere, and those making the comments are usually pleased with this
difference.
In this light, whether you are a novice or experienced instructor, remember that the people
in your classes are supposed to be there to take your advice if only for the hour or so you
teach them. Unfortunately, there is a common hidden agenda with Western students who
expect that paying you will entitle them to have a say in the way they are taught! This ap-
plies particularly to private students who are able to afford the extra cost and are probably
used to manipulating those around with their greater buying power.
Dont bend over backwards to be accommodating to them, or to humour their idle chit-
chat, or the tendency to stand around when not being supervised as it often happens in
group classes. As long as it is done with courtesy and common sense, the majority of adult
students respond best to structure and gentle discipline. In fact, structure is not a dirty word
unless you become too rigid in how you run your classesaside from the basics, which need
a lot of attention, a little variety in how the classes are run from month to month can be a
good thing.
It is important to show off to the students once in a while to remind them that you still
have some value added and to provide the visual stimulus some students on the edge of
a big breakthrough will need to suddenly get it. As with any peak performance, some
who have those breakthroughs will hang onto the experience and use it to transform their
performance from then on. With others, the breakthrough will fade almost immediately,
providing only proof that it is possible for them to fa-jing or do a leaping kick. (You never
know when you will be attacked by someone on horseback!)
Few in any group of beginners will bother to practise what little they learnlet alone make
the effort necessary to advance to the deeper aspects of the artoutside of the formal class
times. It is not easy to decide whether or not a student should learn in stages or thrown
into the water. It is true that the occasional exceptional student will be best served by being
taught in detail right from the beginning. However, it is equally true that the majority of
students have to learn to crawl before they walkmuch less run!
Of course, this also means that the teacher must remember the basic ways of doing the
various forms and not just move on to whatever level he or she is ready for and forget the
material that is no longer relevant to their level of expertise. In some ways, life is simpler for
those who dont teach, as they can move from one level of form practice to another without
122 CHAPTER EIGHT

having to remember or practise the difference between the form they do now, after ve or
ten years, and the form they were taught as a beginners.
Sometimes, watching your students ounder is a powerful reminder that you may not have
got it quite as much as you think. It is also true that some talented practitioners are use-
less as instructors through lack of teaching or verbal skills, and some who are less talented
as practitioners are very good at coaching others to excellence. In particular, the language
issue helps to explain why the level of bagua practice in the rst few decades of it being
introduced to non-Chinese in North America and Europe was relatively low. The teachers
spoke poor or indifferent English and were unable to easily explain the subtleties of the art
to those who were not Chinese.
In terms of physical teaching style, it is important to get to know your students before
you start laying on hands to reposition them manually when trying to teach abdominal
breathing or how to use their bodies properly. Many people are uncomfortable with any
touching; conversely, some will enjoy it a little too much.
There are always groupies in any teaching relationship, and it is important to discourage
such emotional dependence, which can leave the client open to emotional or physical abuse
(i.e., I dont think it is ever appropriate to date or be intimate with your students). You even
have to think twice about socialising with them too much, in case they misinterpret or try
to use the relationship to their advantage.
I use a lot of humour while teaching, and it is usually well-received, although I have been
criticised for it on occasionsome beginners want and expect their instructor to be solemn.
You cant please every potential student, and I no longer try!
It is essential, in the long run, to develop your own style of teaching. Any good approach
should be transmittable to at least a few people, and not be the sole property of the instruc-
tor who may be relying on his personal genius and experience to make dubious material
work. In fact, one way of judging the quality of the teacher is observing their bagua group
trainingif none of the long-term students have any real skill despite the teacher having
desirable qualities, you can assume that something is wrong with the curriculum.
Some of the old-time relationship between teacher and student was feudal and abusive.
There should be no need to be a Master to get the respect of the students that you want
to keep; on the other hand, it is also easy to allow those you teach to treat you too casually.
Dont forget that they need you more than you need them. Oh, and dont get discouraged
or take it personally if you have almost no one left after the rst few weeks you start a class.
There is very little demand for quality internal arts of any kind.
On the positive side, teaching what you know is one of the best ways of improving your
understanding of the material and deepening itso it is worth the effort and frustration
for a few years at the very least. The real reward comes from those times when you watch a
group of your students and notice magic in their movements, or see smiles and hear laugh-
ter even though they are working hard.
TEACHING AND ETHICS 123

WHERE YOU TEACH

Traditionally, parks were used as training grounds, but weather is often a factor that can se-
verely limit outside training time in many parts of the world for month after dreary month.
I dont practise outside in hot and humid, freezing, wet, or snowy weatherso I can hardly
complain when my students dont!
In my experience, the worst places to teach tend to be tness centres in government or big
business complexes, as there is often no fresh air, lots of loud music, other members talk-
ing, coming and going, or using noisy tness machines while you are trying to teach. It is
very difcult to teach even the basics of qigong and walking the circle, let alone forms and
partner work, in such a distracting environment.
In addition, many workers have good intentions about attending noon-hour or after-hours
programs, but then soon discover that they must attend last-minute meetings, or work
through lunch or late into the evening. Anything, like bagua forms, that must be learned
sequentially, is very difcult to teach or learn when students miss a lot of classes. They
quickly realise how hard it is to keep up if they miss class frequently and give up and drop
out. Conversely, catering to them slows the learning and frustrates those who make the ef-
fort to come to class regularly.
Finally, if you try to get a study group going where you work but there is no tness centre
available there, it can be hard to schedule a suitable space for a bagua class. It is very dis-
tracting to do as I have done and hold your classes in the foyer of a large building (listening
to vacuuming after hours is no fun) or in a boardroom full of furniture that has to be moved
out of the way for each class and replaced when it is over!
Teaching in your home, if you have the space, is a very traditional way of giving lessons,
and it used to be considered an honour to be invited to teachers house for studies. If you
have suitable free space, teaching at home is ideal for private classes, once you know the
student, or perhaps for very small groups but rarely appropriate for large group classes or
for attracting beginners who, rightly or wrongly, assume that someone competent will have
a more commercial location. Also, you may nd it impossible to teach the weapons forms
from lack of space to swing the weapons freely. My wife used to take a very dim view of
what my broadsword did to the ceiling of my training room while I was learning and teach-
ing that weapon. Oh, and a broken table lamp is good for several hours of hot tongue and
cold shoulder.
This also brings up practical issues, such as whether you live in an area that is zoned to al-
low such activities in a residence, as well as insurance liability for paying customers coming
to your residence.
Teaching out of your home also makes it harder to attract female students who understand-
ably may be reluctant to come to a mans residence and possibly be alone with a stranger.
For a woman instructor, the danger is that some men will confuse what she is offering with
what men often want from an unknown woman who invites them into her house.
Church halls or community centres are sometimes affordable and/or available on week-
ends free of charge if you are teaching on a not-for-prot basis. However, in the rst case at
124 CHAPTER EIGHT

least, a surprising number of priests, ministers, mullahs and rabbis feel that their ock may
be tainted spiritually by doing bagua because of its connection to Buddhism and Taoism.
More than once over the years I have read articles by fundamental Christian and Muslims
denouncing the practice of bagua, taiji, and qigong as being somehow the tools of Satan.
As to starting your own school from scratch, be prepared nancially to live off your cash
reserves (if you have any left after paying for premises and renovations) for at least one
year. Taxes, advertising costs and ofce expenses will quickly demand that you either com-
mercialise your teaching to ensure the numbers of students necessary to support such an
establishment; or, as is often the case, you will have to rent out space at your school to
those teaching other complimentary disciplines (yoga, dance, qigong, other martial arts) to
supplement your income.
By the way, teaching endless groups of beginners or having to do endless private classes
may result in you nding that you no longer have the enthusiasm for this art you once had,
or you will burn out physically or emotionally from trying to earn a living. I am not trying
to be discouraging, but you cannot appreciate being a teacher until you have done it with
some dedication and suffered some of the arrows that come with trying to do so as a supple-
ment to your income or as its sole source.

WHOM YOU TEACH

It is amazing how many people think that learning bagua or the internal martial arts of
any kind is easy, and that they dont have to bring any physical abilities or enthusiasm to
their classes in order to make progress. For example, I did a survey at the rst introductory
bagua group class I ever taught at a community centre, and only three of more then ten in
attendance on the rst night were used to regular physical activity or had ever seen bagua
done at any level. Most did not know it was done quickly and was physically demanding.
Not surprisingly, only four remained at the end of ten weeks, even though each class only
lasted one hour, and there was only one class per week.
Martial arts documentaries on television or movie fantasies dont do bagua teachers any
favours by showing elderly Chinese people practising bagua in the park, as the average
viewer forgets that an elderly person makes it look easy because he or she has been doing
it daily for years!
Conversely, I have also learned the hard way that it is more difcult than it seems to guess
correctly which of the beginners will persevere, and improve, and continue their training.
Sometimes it is not the one with lots of aptitude who seems so enthusiastic in the rst few
classes, but the slower, duller student who goes the distance and ends up learning something
of real value.
Dont take it personally when people drop out or seem half-hearted. It will take you some
time to develop your own rhythm and style as a teacher of this discipline. A few students
along the way will blossom, and most will either coast or drop out. Studying bagua is not
easy, and very few will bother to make the necessary effort or will nd that they dont enjoy
the training and will go elsewhere to nd other disciplines that suit their physique and na-
ture better. And that is okay too.
TEACHING AND ETHICS 125

In some ways, teaching at noon-hour in a tness centre is more likely to attract those used
to regular exercise as well as those looking for stress reduction. However, it is very difcult
to sell the value of standing still and circular movement to aerobics fanatic, weight lifters or
modern hard style martial artists unless you can get them to give it a real try and convince
them that bagua can be a useful supplement to other trainingand not a replacement.
Conversely, you have to be careful and considerate of people with special physical needs,
but mustnt cater to them so much that it is unfair to the others without such limitations.
Qigong and the Chinese internal systems tend to attract people with severe problems of
one sort or another, and many of them either want miracles from you or are unable to cope
with the physical movements.
It is important to be honest and sometimes blunt with beginnersyou are not a miracle
or counselling service and, even for the simpler health-oriented methods, some people are
not up to the challenge physically if they are badly out of shape or have acute or chronic
medical conditions. It is worth repeating that you should steer the acutely ill to a competent
Western or qigong doctor, rather than teach them methods that may worsen their lives.

OBSERVERS
Most people who watch a bagua class will know nothing or next to nothing about com-
petency in it or the related internal disciplines. However, you will occasionally face hostile
observersparticularly those who are adherents of other teachers, both good and bad. On
several occasions such people have come and watched critically, asked pointed questions,
made snide comments about what I was teaching, or have challenged me physically. On a
good day you will just laugh them off, on a bad day.
Some of the experienced practitioners you meet or who observe your class will be coldly
polite, some aloof, some friendly. You have to play it by ear in your dealings with them.
Let me add that one of my continuing disappointments with the experienced practitioners
and teachers I meet is how arrogant they all seem to be about what they are doing. Having
pride in what you practise or teach is one thing, but feeling that there is nothing of value
elsewhere is another.
You must also come to terms with racism, as many Chinese instructors and would-be stu-
dents will assume that you can not be any good just because you are not Chinese. Unfortu-
nately, many non-Chinese will also make the same judgment. So, be prepared! I must admit
that I can understand the thought processes behind this even though they are galling. As a
French Canadian, if I took my son to a hockey school in which the coach was Chinese and
could barely speak French or English, I might prejudge his ability to skate and play hockey,
though I might well be wrong in that assumption.
By the way, in the old days it was common enough for teachers to send a senior student to
test the waters with a new teacher in the area. This usually meant a subtle, or not so subtle,
physical challenge to martial ability. This is much rarer than it used be, but still happens.
Especially if you are advertising yourself as a martial arts instructor, you have to be ready to
make some kind of demonstration of skill on occasion. It has happened to me three times
in nineteen years of teaching and, win or lose, it is not a pleasant experience.
126 CHAPTER EIGHT

Speaking of such situations: years ago when I rst started teaching bagua, I had a fellow
who identied himself as a local black belt in karate call my school and ask if he could come
to watch a class, as his Master also taught bagua and taiji. I said, Sure! And, as is often
the case (another Babins axiom), when his appointment rolled around, not one of my ve
students showed up that evening for class! So there I was, practising on my own when my
visitor shows up with two young friends in towall three wearing their karate gi and black
belts under their coats.
After introducing themselves they stood there glowering at me as I did the circular form
and then asked to see some applications. I had the sinking feeling that this was not head-
ing in a friendly direction and decided to brass it out by inviting the one who had called me
to hit me. I told him that I would block the attack in an bagua-like manner without retali-
ating so that he would give it his best in the assumption that I would be blocking in some
way. He let it y, and I did what Erle had done in my presence during his rst workshop in
Ottawa some years before (but not with the same authority) and let this man hit me in the
unprotected torso. I smiled at the impact, and they all looked more than a little surprised.
After that demo, they were suddenly more friendly, which is what I had hoped, and asked to
be led through some basics and the rest of the hour was pleasant enough. They never came
back and I later found out that the fellow who had hit me was teaching what they called
bagua at their local karate/martial arts school.

FRUSTRATIONS & REWARDS

Teaching can also be counterproductive if you lower your standards in order to make a
larger prot. It is also true that in the beginning, many are driven to teach for all the wrong
reasons and burn out as instructors, and often as practitioners. Others are seduced to the
Dark Side (at the risk of sounding melodramatic) and end up teaching because of the nan-
cial rewards and ego gratication of playing the master.
Sadly, for your efforts, few in any group of students will bother to practise what little they
learnmuch less make the physical effort necessary to advance to the deeper aspects of the
art, and even fewer will have any real aptitude or drive to excel.
On the other hand, it is also true that bagua can be many things to many people and that
helping the out-of-shape to rediscover the pleasure and benet of regular physical activ-
ity can bring almost as much satisfaction as teaching someone how to defend themselves
against a variety of attacks.
There is quite a strong prejudice (in North America, anyway) against instructors who charge
for their lessons. The sentiment seems to be that a good teacher will happily teach anyone
who wants lessons for the pure joy of instruction. The taxman, landlord, and those who
provide my Studio phone line have a different opinionas does my wifeso I dont think
that there is anything wrong with charging reasonable fees for your services.
Many students will not take you seriously unless they feel that they have to get their moneys
worth out of you. However, in some ways, it is easier to teach for the love of it, or to share
what little you know if you can do it for free while earning your living in a 9to5 job.
TEACHING AND ETHICS 127

Many commercially successful masters are abusing their students nancially and earn a
very good living while providing relatively little in return to them.
For example, some excellent teachers with thriving schools will become popular on the
workshop traildo a few, realise how much money is to be made, and go on the road many
weekends or weeks per year. This can have unforeseen effects on family lifethe divorce
rate is high among martial arts teachers because of the long evening hours away from home
and the temptations offered by groupies. This also tends to alienate the better students of
the teachers main school, as they feel abandoned and left to their own devices more and
more frequently.
In some classes, it is very hard to be patient with the obvious lack of practice or having to
correct the same mistakes in the same person for the hundredth time. There are other days
when everything aches in my middle-aged carcass, and I think to myself, Why am I doing
this? However, despite all these caveats, I do believe that teachingwhether it is on a one-
to-one basis or in groupsis essential for a while in the same way that structure is essential,
but in the end both may become limiting.
Ultimately, the only good reason to teach is to help you grow as a practitioner while helping
your students nd a path that can bring them better physical health and greater emotional
and spiritual maturity. Which brings us to the next topicmartial virtue!
I will nish with the wisdom of an old-timer in the internal tradition that has remained with
me since I rst read ithow true it seemed to the spirit of teaching:
I see myself as a guide. I am just a tool for my students to know how to teach and
share the knowledge according to the students specications and abilities.
You can practise as a group, but the whole idea is very personal. Each student
should move at this pace. This days (sic) many people think only about ghting.
Fighting is something natural for the human being, and learning how to use
your skills in combat is part of the traditional Kung-fu, but it is important that
teacher also teaches how to avoid ghting. In a way, by learning how to ght
we also learn the value of not ghting. Self-control is very important. I would
strongly advise not to intellectualise the art. Kung-fu can be intellectualised, but
the real practice is what is important. It takes more patience and hard work and
less words. Li Jian Yu, SECRETS OF INTERNAL KUNG-FU, May Issue, 2001.
MARTIAL VIRTUE
Martial Ability (Wu-gong) refers to training and experience in external or internal martial
arts; it implies a balanced approach to incorporating physical and energetic aspects to ones
training. This is different from Martial Virtue (Wu-de), which refers to a code of con-
duct that restrains and controls the practitioner when applying the martial abilities gained
through training.
Nowadays, Wu-de is an often neglected aspect of modern classes in the internal arts al-
though teachers often talk of using their qigong practice for a variety of spiritual and/or
meditative purposes. However, little attention or class time is usually devoted to the day-
to-day implications of these lofty aimsor, to put it bluntly, talk is cheap. This is partly
128 CHAPTER EIGHT

practical from the perspective of the average teacher, as the kind of person who gravitates
to the active life of martial training is often the least likely to want to stand or sit quietly.
It is also important to remember that the martial artist was the subject of hero worship in
his homeland. There are many examples in Chinese popular ction going back decades
even centuriesof Robin Hood type warrior ascetics whose kung-fu skills were as highly
developed as their social conscience. It is another question how often the real experts lived
up to this lofty ideal, in the same way that the average knight in the Middle Ages was as far
as possible from the idealised nature of the Age of Chivalry.
Despite this, a substantial proportion of beginners have some expectation that their teacher
will be like the venerable chief monk on the old kung-fu television series, and the classes
and the training will be exotic and mysteriousand not just hard work with the occasional
bruise or injury. Fortunately, this is largely irrelevant to whether or not there is a code of
ethics in your own practice, and that of the teacher or style you follow. I feel that it is es-
sential to instil values in your training that are worthy of inspection from the perspective of
any good ethical system or religion.
May I suggest that the key concepts of martial ethics are Respect, Loyalty, Honesty, Humil-
ity and Integrity.
Respect is not easy to achieve or maintain and, on a core level, you must respect the art
you want to learn as well as your teacher as a practitioner, as a teacher, and as a person. If
you already feel that you know as much as him or her, it will be very difcult to understand
the subtleties that often dene the difference between a competent technician and a master
practitioner.
We often become more like those we respect than we may be willing to acknowledge. You
have to be careful that you dont copy the bad with the good over the months and years. On
the other hand, if you cannot respect them as individuals, you can still learn a great deal.
You must also respect your training partners in class so that you approach each session as
being a learning experience. It must have aspects of co-operation to be done safely and to
the mutual benet of all concerned. Martially, this is often difcult, as egos often come into
play when people train together.
Sadly, many people who approach the martial arts initially do so out of fear, and their egos
are tender in terms of loss of face or of appearing stupid. Sometimes a teacher must al-
low such students a little leeway at rst or treat them harshly when they act out, to teach the
valuable lesson. Respect is a two-way street and must be given as well as received.
You must also remember to respect those around you in your daily life and not abuse any
martial skill that you do develop. It is particularly true for those younger men who ap-
proached the martial arts because they were fearful or had been victimised by bullies or
criminals. It is easy to abuse your new-found health and martial abilities and become a little
too much like those who may have picked on you before your training. With martial skill
comes responsibilityboth on an ethical and legal level.
Loyalty, in traditional view, to a Chinese martial arts teacher was expected to be uncon-
ditional, and the teacher literally assumed the role of an adoptive parent with the unques-
TEACHING AND ETHICS 129

tioned obedience implied in their culture. Such a concept is hard for Westerners to digest
and has largely disappeared from modern schools, but still can often be found in schools
with an older Chinese teacher.
Loyalty is very much a double-edged sword in the sense that a practitioner is hardly liable
to make the most of their training if they constantly hop from teacher to teacher, or if they
feel no sense of connection to what is being taught and to the person teaching them.
However, it is equally true that a student must at the same time remain loyal to himself and
to his family or society. Some unscrupulous teachers will not hesitate to exploit unquestion-
ing obedience for nancial, sexual, or egotistical reasons. It is a ne balancing act to remain
loyal both to your own needs and to those of the person teaching you.
Oh, and you have to remember to remain loyal to your family and friends as well and not
ignore their complaints: You are always away at class! or Do you have to train now, we
have to take the kids out! or That workshop clashes with the holiday we talked about tak-
ing in the summer. Compromise and negotiation are difcult skills to learn, but are essen-
tial aspects of being matureno matter what your biological ageand, if you think about
it, essential aspects of developing self-defence skills. Physical conict should be a viable last
resort and not your rst choice in settling disputes.
Honesty is an elusive quality in modern life and seems to have gone out of fashion in
many ways. It should not be confused with the media obsession of speaking out on every
personal subject and former taboo in the name of being open.
The teacher must be honest with the student, and the student must be honest with his or
her teacher and, perhaps the hardest of all, with him or herself ! On a simple level this can
extend to the most mundane details. For example, when I went to Boulder, Colorado in the
mid-90s to be in Erle Montaigues video on Dim-mak for Paladin Press, the editor we were
dealing with mentioned over breakfast one morning that not one of their popular authors
of self-defence texts with Chinese names was actually Asian. Strange how many North
American kung-fu types insist on being called by an Oriental name or title, despite being
born white or black.
On the other hand, good white practitioners will often get bestowed a Chinese name by
their Chinese teachers, partly as a mark of distinction and partly because it will be easier
for the Chinese to say than the original name. However, this is different from conferring a
Chinese name on yourself to sound more authentic.
As a student, you need to identify what you want from your training, reconcile those needs
with what you can realistically achieve through your training, and communicate those ex-
pectations to your teacher. The average student may be taking classes because they need
to ll a void in their social life; they may want to learn something supposedly good for the
health that they imagine doesnt take much effort; they may be looking for martial and/or
performance skills, and they may be there because the school is convenient to their home
or ofce or affordable. Only you can know what you want from your training, and what you
are willing to sacrice in order to make progress.
It is also important to realise that the teacher may have as much trouble as you do identify-
ing what he or she wants from being an instructor. Some do so for the money to be made
130 CHAPTER EIGHT

from teaching commercially, some from a desire to be in the spotlight, some teach from a
genuine need to share whatever skills they may have, and some just like to be in charge.
These are all normal motives for teaching. As long as the teacher is honest with the student,
and vice versa, and both are getting something from the relationship, neither should have
any real reason to complain.
Humility is only problematic if you dont have any. You are not likely to learn anything
if you already feel that you know it all. In particular, those students who already have some
skills may well concentrate on trying to nd the similarities between what they already think
they know and with what they are presently studying.
As I have said before, in understanding a new method or style it is often more productive
to try and identify how is is different, rather than how it is similar to what you have done
before.
It is perhaps even more important for the teacher to remain humble despite his or her tech-
nical skills and experience. I remember my elderly mother watching a video of a martial
arts show where I and some of my students had demonstrated bagua in the mid-90s. Her
comment was, Why are you going in circles? That looks stupid! Beauty truly is in the eyes
of the beholder. It is hard not to keep some perspective on your skills and the relative value
of your training when you are periodically reminded that the sun doesnt shine out of your
nether regions. Perhaps, the loss of this kind of innocence is what keeps most instructors
from fullling their real potentials as human being and as instructors. It is very difcult to
become an expert if you already feel that there is little more that you can learn from anyone
else!
Integrity is something that has largely gone out of style in modern society, and most
people will no longer value the rare examples still to be found. For example, you nd a wal-
let with a great deal of cash and go to the effort of returning it to the owner. Your friends
or family will look at you incredulously because you didnt accept a reward for its return,
and more than a few will think you are stupid for having returned it at all. Morality has no
value in a consumer society whose heroes are large corporations or nancial institutions
who seem to function on socially dubious or fraudulent practices.
This is not to say that you should try to become some perfect or mythic gure, but just stay
true to whatever value system your parents raised you with. And if they didnt, it is never
too late to learn. Start with Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This
excellent advice occurs in every major religion I have studied, and the wording is often very
similar. Human nature is human nature.
Oh, and in the long run, those who choose to teach baguazhang (or any martial art) have
a greater burden than those who are content to follow. Ideally, teaching should benet the
students on many levelseach according to his or her capacity and needsand not just
stroke the ego of the teacher or ll his pockets with money.
Although it has nothing to do with martial training (or does it?), I also like the advice the
Dalai Lama gave in his speech on the subject of the millennium in the year 2000: Follow
the three Rs: Respect for self, respect for others, responsibility for all your actions. Good
advice for people in general, and martial artists in particular!
TEACHING AND ETHICS 131

CONCLUSION
The longer I teach, the more I understand why the best teachers currently, and probably
in the past, teach only privately or in small groups and dont try to make a lot of money
teaching such classes. Perhaps, it is because in the traditional approach classes were held
informally in the parks or temples, and students paid by their loyalty and effort more than
in cash or kind. Certainly, the longer I teach, the more mixed feelings I have about being a
bagua instructor.
As I mentioned before, teaching is a necessary evil; however, it is equally true that teaching
can be a noticeable drag on your personal time and energy, and you may eventually have to
consider taking a sabbatical from teaching group classes to focus on your own training and
working with one or two students as training partners for the martial methods.
Learning to be a good teacher of bagua is like anything else in life: you have to be patient,
within reason, with peoples foibles and teach them to the best of your ability all the time.
Getting back momentarily to humility, it is also important to remember that being a great
martial artist is not worth a pinch of poop in the grand scheme of things, and that few
people will really care or remember your sterling qualities as a teacher or a person when
you are gone. If those were the only reasons to practise and teach bagua, there would be
even fewer practitioners around than there are!
Final Words

Life is too short to spend time and effort training in something that is not as functional as
it was designed to be. I have always preferred to study martial arts that have usefulness.
However, it is also true that you can practise bagua circle walking for health purposes on
many levels. In fact, some martial historians link the origins of circular patterns in this art
to religious and meditative practices that are still used by some Taoist religious sects.
In recent years, the traditional Christian religious practice of walking the maze while
praying has become popular again, and even the most cynical might see the common
thread in entering meditative state by walking the maze or walking the circle. It is also
tempting, when watching a demonstration of the meditative circling dances of the Su
Muslims, called rather crassly whirling dervishes by the popular Western media, to see the
common ground that unites any of these practices on a meditative and spiritual level.
Sadly, most modern bagua stylists I have met wouldnt have much hope using their art
for self-defence against a determined aggressor, much less against one who also had some
technical skills in ghting. The other side of the dilemma is that too much ghting is hard
on the body past a certain age and not necessarily good for the soul.
So what is the answer? I could suggest that one answer is looking for a balanced approach
to your training. Finding an approach that honestly suits your individual needs is another.
But, unfortunately, there is no formula that will make everyone happy.
In any case, if you cannot nd a good bagua teacher whose classes you can attend regularly,
or if you have tried self-instruction from videos and it has not worked for you, then you are
probably better off studying with a live teacher in any good martial discipline you can nd
and practising circle walking as a moving qigong.
I might also suggest, to further confuse the issue, that it is very difcult to do circle walking
well on any level unless you have had well-rounded instruction from a qualied expert. Per-
severing in the study of bagua, or any aspect of that discipline, is very much a microcosm of
life. And, as in life, there are rarely any easy answers or short cuts that are worth taking.
 133

Thank you for having read through this little book. I trust that at least some of what you
have read will be useful to your training. You dont have to agree with or understand every-
thing I wrote, but thinking about the subject in a critical manner is essential for maximizing
the physical aspect of your practice on any level.
Good luck with your training and with life. Neither are easy, and both are worth pouring
your heart and soul into!
About the Author

I began studying Japanese and Chinese hard

martial styles in the early 1970s and started
learning Yang Style Taijiquan in 1975 with
a succession of local instructors. By 1980,
I was sure I knew it all. Then I met Allan
Weiss, a student of the late Lee Shiu Pak,
and he very kindly shattered all illusions I
had about both my level of understanding
of Yang Style Taijiquan and my martial ex-
pertise. After ve years of teaching, he cer-
tied me as an instructor in 1985.
For the next few years, I taught my own taiji
classes, wrote articles for the martial arts and
taiji magazines (including Tongren, Canadian
Martial Arts, Combat & Healing, Inside Kung
Fu, Tai Chi, Australasian Fighting Arts, Black
Belt, Karate/Kung Fu Illustrated, and Of-
ficial Karate), and attended workshops and
training camps given by such experts as the
late Eric Chew, Sam Masich, Yang Ywing
Ming, Liang Shouyu, Eric Tuttle, William
C.C. Chen, and Carol Mancuso.
Each one in their own way helped me realise that I still didnt know as much as I had
hoped and assumed. In particular, I had been corresponding with Erle Montaigue for some
time and invited him in 1990 to do a workshop in Ottawa during his rst tour of North
America. As a result of that experience, I decided to abandon almost everything I had been
practising and teaching to start anew from his videos and workshops on both Taijiquan and
Baguazhang.
Erle certied me as competent to teach his approach to Baguazhang in 1994, and since
then I have taught classes in that art. Many years later, I still dont have any answers; but,
thanks to Erle and the other bagua instructors who have inuenced me along the way, a few
of the questions are starting to make sense.
This is my rst offering on this discipline although I have written or co-written three pub-
lished books. Both taiji texts were published by Paladin Press in the mid-1990s. One of
these, Power Taiji, co-authored with Erle Montaigue, is still in print and available for sale at
http://www.paladin-press.com.